


Hindsight

by AndromedaPrime



Series: Andromeda [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Emergence, Infanticide, M/M, Mech Preg, Mechpreg, Mpreg, Sparklings, Sticky Sex, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, past Megatron/Optimus Prime - Freeform, past Optimus Prime/Ratchet - Freeform, some Arcee Bulkhead and Breakdown/Knock Out, unhealthy Ironhide/Ratchet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-04 23:25:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 34,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1797184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndromedaPrime/pseuds/AndromedaPrime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Optimus's words from so long ago ran through his processor: "The past has a way of catching up with the present."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Quiet

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this story, then titled _Ghosts_ , as a sequel to _Amnesiac_ (which has been renamed as _Lethe_ ) and posted it to Fanfiction.net in September of 2012, finishing it in early December that year. It was met with a lot of favorites/reviews (along with many people cursing me for making them cry), but for personal reasons I took this story and its sequel titled _Resolute_ down from their original places on Fanfiction.net.
> 
> I have posted it back up with some edits here and there, and some major writing overhauls near the final chapters.

It was quiet.

Much too quiet.

It clicked in his processor that it was currently half-past six AM, and Andromeda wasn’t breaking the silence of his quarters with her melodious chirrs and chirps to announce a new day and her hunger. His systems jolted online, and he heard himself gasp as his optics powered up. The Prime sat up in his berth and looked around frantically, searching the darkness for a pair of two blue orbs.

He found them staring curiously at him from the sparkling berth. Then he heard her give a small warble, and saw the wings protruding from her backplates flicker softly in the black. Optimus sighed and closed his optics, putting his digits to his forehelm and adding pressure to relieve some of the processor-ache he was currently suffering. Andromeda was a good sparkling and didn’t make a single noise as she watched her carrier trying to compose himself. When he did, he rose off the berth, and she chirred softly, holding her arms out to him.

Optimus smiled down at the little seekerling, lifting her from her crib and cradling her in his arms. “Hi there. You gave me quite a scare, little femme.”

Andromeda stretched her legs out and blinked around at the now-familiar settings of the quarters she shared with her carrier, then looked back up at him as he continued, “I suppose it is to be expected after this. You no longer cry out in the night, and for that I thank you,” Optimus remarked humorously.

This was the seventeenth night in a row that the femmeling didn’t wake him up from his sleep. It was both a good and bad thing. Good, that he now managed to recharge a little bit more. Bad, in that it meant she was growing, and he now had to become adjusted to it all. Panic still struck him when she didn’t wake him up.

_Chirr-chirr!_

“I’m afraid I cannot understand you, Andromeda. What is it you desire?”

As if in response to her carrier’s inquiry Andromeda pointed to the depths of her crib, where an oversized stuffed toy lay knocked over. Her servos made grasping and grabbing motions for the plushie, chirring and clicking at the toy. Optimus quickly added two and two, and reached into the crib, grabbing the giant plush lion. He couldn’t help chuckling as Andromeda snatched it and cradled it best as she could against her little chassis, cooing at the warmth and fluff.

The Prime gently bounced the femmeling in his arms, kissing her on the helm as he walked them both out of his quarters and into the main room, where the Autobot medic was hunched over a table and focused on whatever work was in front of him. Ratchet looked up slowly, his bright blue optics focused on the little sparkling in his Prime’s arms, before he locked optics with Optimus, nodded, then returned to his experiments.

Optimus bit down on his lower lipplate as he strode into the energon storage room, grabbing a cube for himself. Andromeda wasn’t in need of a feeding at the moment. The Prime sat on the cool cement floor, placing the seekerling in front of him. Andromeda was contented to sit in front of her carrier and play with the giant lion plush, waving him around and making noises that were supposed to be akin to lion roars. She cooed, chirred, and made the lion she’d designated “Keet!” fly as if he were a Seeker.

“Keet!” she pointed at the lion and his regal mane. Andromeda looked up at Optimus with large blue optics and grinned at him. The Autobot Commander couldn’t help but return the smile, leisurely drinking the rich blue liquid, savoring the taste. The eight-Earth-month-old sparkling continued dragging her toy across the floor, chirping happily.

It was safe to say that Andromeda would possess a frame equal to Skyquake’s when she reached full maturity; instead of being light and lithe like Starscream, her figure was heavier. The seeker sparkling seemed to grow two inches every two weeks, and her wings had finally extended to their full width, beautiful and primarily deep blue with dark violet trim. They were a temptation, prompting him to run his digits along the edges, but the one time he did so, Andromeda flinched backward and her normally playful optics became hostile. He stuck to only doing so when he gave her a cleansing bath.

“Mah! Bah-mah!,” Andromeda babbled nonsensically, placing (more like tossing) Keet on the floor and attempting to stand up on her own two pedes. She wobbled unsteadily, sticking her arms out to gain some stability. It didn’t work. She fell back on her aft, grunting in pain, but didn’t let out a cry, choosing instead to blink up at her carrier.

“My beautiful little sparkling,” Optimus cooed at his daughter. His cube of energon finished, he gathered her in his arms, hugging her and planting a kiss to her forehelm. She squirmed in his grasp and pawed at the windowpanes and armor, but then snuggled into the embrace and gave a contented chirp. “The light of my life, my reason for living. If anything were to happen to you, I would not be able to go on without you.”

Andromeda merely cooed. Her wings twitched and flicked, drooping down as she tapped his window glass. He immediately understood the gesture, parting his chassis plates and letting Andromeda take a feeding line to her mouth, watching with adoration and affection as she got her fill.

.-.-.

…35,000 Earth-years prior…

_He wouldn’t be surprised if this very battle ended up being his last. If this day ended up being his last, that he would cease to function on this very stretch of almost forgotten land just by Kaon, scarred by ravines and trenches running in diagonal and zig-zag patterns._

_At this rate there would only be two things that could have surprised him, he thought. One, if Primus decided to let him join the Well instead of the Pit, where he belonged, for being so brash and weapon-happy, to pay his debt for all the sparks he’d personally done in.. And two, if the Pit didn’t resemble the real-life Pit he was currently experiencing._

_The mech stuffed another round of laser fire into his trusty cannon, waiting for a lull in the shootings to come._

_The lull came, and Ironhide hissed as a laser shot grazed his shoulder armor, leaving a black burn mark in its wake. His cannons roared ferociously, firing up, and he aimed towards the squadron of Decepticon troops headed for the red mech. The shot obliterated half the group, showering him in shrapnel and remains and diluted energon._

_Now they were all gone; the supplies and fuel the Decepticons had been guarding were now unprotected and could be used by him._

_The only thought that ran through Ironhide’s processor as he finished off the last of the ‘con troopers was,_ Primus help meh, and I’ll be seein’ yer beautiful face soon, Ra’ch.


	2. Story

His optics, hidden behind his visor along with the entirety of his faceplates, watched and tracked his master’s movements. Megatron, Harbinger of Doom and the Lord of the Decepticons, paced along with ship’s elevated walkway, his optics now a shade of lilac from the Dark Energon he’d ingested the day before. The drones clacked and typed away at the monitors, tracking the Earth for any sign of the Autobots and the precious treasure they held.

“It has been eight of this planet’s months that we have last seen anything of the Autobots.” The silver warlord held his servo in front of his chassis, clenching and unclenching it and stopping in his tracks. “I have a very difficult time believing that they’ve managed to hide themselves away for this long.” He turned to Soundwave, taking three broad steps towards his trusty security officer. “Have the drones double their efforts and workload. And have the grounders cover a wider stretch of land. The longer the sparkling is in their grasp the harder it will be to break the little one of their programming.”

All that Soundwave could do was nod his helm in understanding. The Security Officer then transmitted a message to the drones relaying the Decepticon leader’s orders. They ceased their activities for a brief moment, allowing their leader’s words to sink in, then the ones at the monitors began clacking and typing at a frenzied pace.

“Excellent,” Megatron hissed to himself in a low tone that only Soundwave picked up. The Security Officer tilted his helm at the silver mech, who continued, “I certainly hope Knockout is up to the task of _breaking_ her.”

.-.-.

His pointed digits reached and grabbed for his precious energon prod, removing a cleaning sheet from his subspace, and polishing the metal to a high sheen. The Decepticon medic pursed his lipplates and absent-mindedly hummed an ancient Cybertronian ditty about how those who kept themselves shiny attracted the best mates.

_::Uh, Knockout?::_

_::What is it Breakdown?::_

Knockout placed the energon prod in its place of honor, just above the rest of his tools. He believed he was done…then he turned back to view the medical bay of the _Nemesis_ and remembered that the berth needed sanitizing. The red Aston Martin grumbled to himself and whipped out the cleaning cloth, pouring a disinfecting solvent over the metal surface and wiping it down.

_::This…I…I…Y’know what happened four days ago?::_

He heard the anxiousness in his mate’s voice, but decided to overlook the tone, instead answering _::Well, I do vividly recall that the ground-based drones discovered a new cache of energon, and Megatron became very delighted and he and Soundwave-::_

_::No, no! I meant w-with us::_

Ah. That. The first time in quite a long time that Breakdown let him take the dominant position. The memory coursed through his processor hotly, reigniting all his pleasure points as he remembered massaging the quivering, rarely-used valve, guiding the weeping tip of his spike into the bulkier mech’s frame, felt the clanging and scraping of metal-on-metal as he thrust vigorously into the velvet heat, the rush of his coding fleeing from his frame and flooding Breakdown’s reproductive chamber, followed by…

Oh… Primus and Unicron.

Knockout felt his entire frame, every neural net and bit of energon coursing through his frame, go cold. He dropped the cleaning cloth onto the still-wet berth and staggered over to the nearest wall, reaching his arm out to steady himself as his legs and entire frame shook violently.

_::Knockout?::_

The Decepticon medic placed his free servo to the side of his helm, groaning in pain as he felt a processor ache coming on.

_::Knockout, are you-::_

_::Where are you, Breakdown?::_

_::I’m in our quarters::_

_::Can you walk normally?::_

_::Not…really…::_ He heard the pain in his bondmate’s voice, and felt the nausea and discomfort through their bond.

_::Stay there, I will go and get you::_

.-.-.

For the past eight months whenever the kids came to the base right after school, Miko and Raf immediately headed for Andromeda. Jack lagged behind, shoving his hands in his pants pockets awkwardly and standing against the wall before he finally gave in.

At the present moment the sparkling was laying down on the floor of the base, Keet in front of her and her datapad in between them as she scribbled on the device. Circles in circles on top of a big circle. Alternating between making loopy scribbles and zig-zag lines around the largest circle. It was pretty obvious to the three children that she was drawing her treasured stuffed lion.

Miko leaned forward, tilting her head to the side and placing her hands on her knees, watching every stroke of the stylus. “For a baby she’s pretty good at drawing.”

“Way better than a human baby would be,” Jack agreed, dropping to the floor and sitting next to the enormous stuffed lion that he eyed warily, concerned that it could fall over and potentially squish him with all the fluff it had. He sidestepped twice, placing him in a safer zone. “How did she even get this thing anyhow?”

“Fowler paid a company to make the biggest stuffed lion they could and gave it to Andromeda when she turned six-months old,” Raf answered as he scribbled in a small corner of the datapad with his finger, making faint grey markings. “She keeps it with her wherever she goes.”

“Keet! Keet!” Andromeda chirred and clicked, dropping the stylus on the datapad and grabbing the plush feline, sitting up from her laying position and hugging Keet to her chassis with a peaceful smile on her faceplates. Her wings flicked up and down lightly, communicating her happiness at having the toy with her. Blue optics stared down at them curiously, and she grinned at them, chirping.

“Where is Optimus by the way?”

“He’s taking a well-deserved recharge. Bulkhead’s supposed to be here with me,” Arcee answered from her place over at the monitors, lazily dragging her digits across the keyboard as she watched for any strange activity or blips on the monitors. “We’re taking turns watching the monitors and Andromeda while the others sleep. Wish I could be doing that right now.”

“KEET!” After that delighted squeal echoed in the main room an orange, yellow, and brownish blur flew through the air and landed near the motorbike femme’s pedes. She looked down at the lion’s black beady eyes, then to Andromeda and her large blue orbs staring expectantly at her, then back to the plush toy again.

Andromeda pointed and chirred insistently at the lion. Her wings arched up in irritation at the delay, and she shakily got to her pedes, taking half a step forward before she fell to her knees. The Prime sparkling gave a frustrated sigh and then settled for crawling to Arcee and Keet. She gathered the king of the jungle to her chassis and buried her faceplate in his mane all the while looking up brightly at her fellow femme. Arcee only smiled down at the sparkling before turning back to her monitor duties.

.-.-.

Andromeda’s soft chirrs and chirps gently rose him from his slumber. The Prime opened his optics and smiled at the not-so-little sparkling laying on his chassis. The seekerling returned the grin. Optimus placed a servo over her backplates, holding her steady and close as he rose from the berth and looked up to see a white and red form retreating from his quarters.

Even after these months, the medic was the only one to bring the little one back to his quarters. As long as he did nothing to his daughter or to him, and promptly left, Optimus had no problem with the arrangement. The Autobot Commander and the Autobot Medic were still on curt terms, which was evident to everyone around them. It mattered none how much Ratchet apologized or went out of his way to gift Andromeda with things. Optimus could still not find it in his spark to fully forgive the medic.

The Prime looked over at the corner of the room, nearby Andromeda’s berth. It was piled with toys that had been gifted to the little femme. About half were toys that Ratchet had given the sparkling.

“Mah!” Andromeda nuzzled into her carrier’s chassis, her wings flicking back and forth, her arms hugging Keet. Optimus craned his helm downward and kissed the sparkling on her helm. “Do you want to hear a story, little one? I am aware that you love them.”

This time the sparkling nodded her helm, warbling excitedly.

Optimus placed her on his berth before reaching underneath, digging out the stack of datapads he had saved from the libraries of Cybertron during the final days of the war. He knew already which story Andromeda wanted to hear.

 _“Nexus and Solus Prime loved creation. They were the creators of many of the legendary weapons of Cybertronian lore,”_ he read, his optics briefly flickering to the sparkling to see her reaction. Andromeda only hugged Keet closer to her and met his gaze with shining optics, urging him to continue. _“Together in battle they were unstoppable. They wielded their creations. The Forge, the Star Saber, the Requiem Blaster. All these weapons had the ability to create planets from rocks and crumble stars into dust._

_But there was something they both loved more than creation. Each other. Nexus once enlisted the help of Amalgamous Prime and Vector Prime to move a cluster of newborn stars around so that before she went into recharge, Solus would set her optics on a group of stars in the night sky spelling out her name._

_It took millennia, but Nexus finally convinced Solus that they should become creators. Thus one of the greatest warriors in Cybertronian lore was born: Andromeda the Warrior._

Andromeda’s wings shot up in a “V”-formation at the mention of her namesake. She cuddled Keet even closer (Optimus didn’t know it was possible) and smiled.

 _“Andromeda was the fiercest warrior the universe had ever seen. She obliterated entire opposing armies with just one swipe of her Energon Sword. She created stars at will and crumbled planets when she felt like doing so. She could be forgiving one moment and murderous the next. The fledging Cybertronian civilization bowed to her will and worshipped her. History says that the Thirteen Primes ruled the planet. But those alive during the reign will tell you for sure that it was Andromeda that wielded her wisdom and authority far more than the Primes._ So you are intelligent and fearsome, like your namesake, my little one.”

The seekerling chirred and smiled, bouncing up and down happily.

::Optimus!::

The Prime noted the urgency in the motorbike femme’s voice and set the datapad with the story on his lap. His spark sunk a little when Andromeda cooed sadly, upset that storytime had to be cut so short. ::What is happening Arcee?::

::We’ve got a Decepticon transport crash-landing in Russia!::


	3. Tunguska

“Well…”

“I already know, Knockout,” Breakdown answered tiredly, his optic closed, lying on their berth dejectedly. It was highly unlike the blue mech to be in such a state of fatigue and helplessness.

The Decepticon medic could only stare at the miniscule orb of light in the darkness that was his mate’s gestation tank. He reached a servo out and touched the screen, as if he could feel the spark itself through the scans. Knockout’s spark twisted in pity and regret.

“Breakdown, I can empty your tank within the next solar cycle. It’d be best to do it early, so it doesn’t have time to get very attached,” he said quietly.

A shake of the helm.

“I don’t want to get rid of it.”

“Breakdown,” Knockout turned to face his sparkmate, switching off the monitors, and crossed his arms over his chassis. “What are you going to do? What are we going to do?”

“I know, I just…I…I can’t. I don’t want to…especially after-”

“Don’t you think that crossed my processor? I think about it every solar cycle. I wonder about it. Every. Fragging. Solar cycle, Breakdown. It’ll haunt me even when I offline permanently.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Yes. With all my spark…I’d give anything to not have joined the Decepticon cause, so we’d have a chance. So it would have had a chance.”

Silence fell after the medic’s confession. He slowly removed the sensors and wires he’d placed over Breakdown’s frame to note his vitals and those of the newspark, fully aware of his sparkmate’s good optic watching his every move. When he was done, he still faced the wall, away and his back to the blue-armored van. His pointed digits scraped over his midsection, his optics slowly filling with fluid that he blinked back. He remembered the agony, both physical and emotional but mostly emotional, that he endured before, during, and after that one time.

And Breakdown had offered to carry the next one. He’d been serious, he realized. Breakdown was set on seeing it through…

Knockout turned to face Breakdown only to see that the bigger mech had fallen into a much-needed recharge. He sighed and slid into the berth, his front to Breakdown’s back, and placed his servo over his mate’s own, both servos resting over the blue bot’s midsection.

“I guess there’s no way to change your mind.”

Breakdown muttered back in half-sleep, “No.”

.-.-.

Everyone’s optics were fixated on the alien signal accelerating at high speed towards the ground, and neither bot tore their gaze from the monitors as their Prime entered the room, Andromeda in one arm and his other servo on his hip. The sparkling and the Prime’s blue optics fixated on the moving dot. Andromeda blinked, then looked around at the assembled bots, giving a quizzical warble.

“It’s currently entering the troposphere over Siberia, and seems to be heading for impact by the Tunguska River,” Arcee updated the Prime and the Prime sparkling.

Optimus looked critically at the moving dot, watching its descent towards the ground. He looked down at Andromeda chirring softly up at him. “I have no doubt that the Decepticons have locked onto this signal, and are planning to meet their brethren wherever they may land. Ratchet,” the Prime turned to the medic and fixed a stern optic on him “Open up the groundbridge.”

“Optimus, are you insane?!” Ratchet nearly shrieked, startling Andromeda in the process and making her cry.

The Prime gently bounced the sparkling in his arms, soothing her over their bond while shooting the medic a hostile glare. “Even if we only take down one Decepticon today, it is still one less Decepticon with a beating spark. Open the ground bridge. Bumblebee?”

The yellow scout chirred and looked up brightly at his commander and father-figure.

“You will stay here Andromeda and with the children.”

Bumblebee saw Ratchet grumble silently behind the Prime’s back. He beeped happily, eagerly taking the whimpering seekerling from the Autobot Commander’s arms. Andromeda’s whimpers ceased when she felt the benevolent presence of the scout, though there were tear streaks on her faceplates. She curled into the scout’s warm embrace.

The familiar sound of the ground bridge opening echoed in the room.

“Autobots,” Optimus turned to the other three Cybertronians. “Roll out.”

Andromeda watched through sleepy blue optics as her carrier reformatted himself into an Earth vehicle and sped through towards Russia. Her servos tugged on Keet’s mane, and she yawned before falling into recharge, lulled by the sounds of Bumblebee’s kind spark.

.-.-.

The moment they sped through the rip in space and time and landed on the grass, they assumed their bipedal forms. Optimus’s audios, now much more finely tuned to the world around him since Andromeda’s birth, picked up the sounds of animals fleeing deeper and farther into the forests, away from them. A deer was brave enough to stay and watch for a few moments, lingering far longer than the rest of its herd, before sprinting off into the distance upriver.

“Well, this certainly feels familiar,” he heard the Autobot medic snort. Thinning his lipplates against the comment aimed at him, Optimus changed his arm into a sword and kept his audios pealed for the sounds of a flightcraft approaching them.

There were sounds alright. But not those of a large Decepticon transport he’d expected. He’d heard what they sounded like so many millennia ago, watching the sky darken. More often than not, they proved ominous, foretelling that the Autobots would lose the battle that day. This sound he was hearing, however, was most certainly not a transport.

A high-pitched scream was all he needed.

Arcee, Bulkhead, and Ratchet readied their weapons and began firing as the silhouettes of Insecticons dotted the Russian evening sky. Laser fire hit them from up front, the Vehicon drones appearing from the dark of the trees.

“Bulkhead, Arcee!” Optimus called over the sounds of battle. “You two take the Vehicons. Ratchet, you and I aim for the Insecticons!”

The Autobot medic looked livid at the thought of having to cooperate with his leader, but he pushed the malice aside and followed Optimus up a steep hill, both mechs firing away at the persistent pests. The Insecticons shrieked as they swooped in, attacking the Prime and the medic. Ratchet leaped up and cleaved one of the horrid warrior’s helm off, the head falling at his pedes and splattering energon on his white armor.

“This also feels familiar,” Ratchet muttered. Optimus sliced a leg and part of a wing from one of the Insecticons and turned to shoot the medic a murderous look. “Could you be carrying again? Perhaps that is why these drones have come, to retrieve you to become Megatron’s concubine once more?”

Optimus’s arm changed from a sword into a cannon, and he jumped to catch onto one of the airborne pests, shoving the cannon to its helm and savoring the agonized scream it emitted when he put a round in its processor. The body fell to the ground, Optimus jumping off the second before it impacted the dirt.

“You’ve been spending more and more time asleep. You’ve been cavorting off with the Decepticon warlord again, behind our backs, when you were supposed to be in recharge, haven’t you Optimus?”

“Ratchet,” the Prime hissed as he walked over to the medic. He stood close to the ambulance, vents hissing in anger, optics dark with fury. “I’m. In. No. Mood. For. Games.”

Whatever it was that Ratchet was going to retort back, it was cut off by a fresh wave of Insecticons and…

There it was. The transport ship.

The pests and the drones fled towards them, up mountains and hills, not keen to be crushed by something the size of the _Nemesis_. Arcee and Bulkhead ran up to them, optics wide.

“Do we call for a groundbridge?!” Bulkhead shouted as he ripped a passing Vehicon’s helm from its shoulders.

“Bumblebee, open the groundbridge now!” Ratchet shouted both into the communications link and out loud, cleaving a drone in half at the waist.

An Insecticon, the largest one of the bunch so far, dropped to the ground in front of Optimus, and before the Prime could react, had shrieked and swiped at the semi’s right shoulder, slicing into the armor and cutting many of the wires.

Pain flared across the Prime’s neural net, though now he could handle it. It was nothing compared to the pain of emergence. With energon dripping down his arm, which had now lost sensation and movability, he quickly transformed his left arm into a sword once more and brought it down on the Insecticon’s neck.

“Optimus!” Arcee shouted, running up to her commander and shooting two Vehicons that got in her way. She gently tugged at his left sword, watching as he changed it back into his arm. The Prime reached around and pressed into the wound with his left servo, groaning in pain. Bulkhead and Ratchet came over and herded the Prime into the groundbridge, not even looking behind to see the transport ship finally meet the ground with a thunderous boom.

.-.-.

The silence and tension in the medical bay was so thick that Optimus felt even the Star Saber would have had encountered major difficulties trying to cut through it. He flinched and had to refrain from growling each time Ratchet put his servos on him.

He had told the medic that it wasn’t his forgiveness he should seek. Rather, he should have sought Andromeda’s. But those words still haunted him. _I'll never be able to look at him the same way again. All because of that sparkling that shouldn't even exist. That sparkling that, were I able to, I would have terminated at my first chance._ Words that never failed to put the fear of Primus in his spark, and that made him hug Andromeda closer to him.

Ratchet’s gentle servos smoothed over the plating, checking his work. He’d fixed the damage to the Prime’s wires, and closed the metal gash. “Flex your fingers, Optimus.”

The Prime sighed and did so, spreading them outward, and then clenching and unclenching his servo into a fist.”

“Good. Now your arm.”

Optimus stretched his right arm out then rotated the joint in his shoulder. He bent the arm inward at the elbow, and reached to grasp his left shoulder with his right arm.

“Well, the damage is fixed. I’m taking over your monitor duties for tomorrow, Optimus.”

“Ratchet,” the Prime growled. “I am not an invalid. I can most certainly-”

“You need a solar cycle to rest that arm, Optimus. When it concerns anything medical, it is my word above everyone else’s. And,” the medic grabbed his tools and began the task of cleaning them off and stowing them away, “it would be a double-blessing for you. I know you’ve been wanting to spend more time with your daughter since you began with monitor duty.”

“The same daughter of mine you wanted to terminate.”

The words were out of his mouth before he could put a filter and stop them. Optimus saw Ratchet stiffen when his words were thrown back at him. The Prime felt a smug sense of satisfaction when he saw the reaction he’d elicited from the medic.

Wait…this was how Ratchet had felt on the battlefield, wasn’t it? The reaction he’d gotten out of him?

Ratchet was cleaning the blunt end of a rod, seemingly ignoring Optimus until the Autobot Commander heard him murmur, “Yes, Optimus. The very same daughter.” He stowed the medical tool away and stood in his place with the cleaning rag still clutched in his right servo, and his back to the Prime. The tense silence passed them by for a few more moments before Ratchet suddenly said, “You know that you may leave, right? I’m done.”

The Prime vented air hotly, thinning his lipplates. “If you’ll excuse me then…” he trailed off as he stood from the berth, striding over to the sliding doors. They had just opened when Optimus heard a low voice ask, “How many times do I have to say I’m sorry?”

Optimus turned to face the medic, letting the doors to the med bay slide closed behind him. He blinked and answered, “Save the apologies for Andromeda. They are wasted on me. As I told you-”

“Your life is not the one I said I’d terminate. Yes.” Ratchet looked downtrodden. “I remember that conversation very well.” He tossed the rag into a bin marked _Clean For Reuse_. “But what…what do I have to do to get you to even look at me without such a degree of murder and loathing in your optics again?”

“My daughter has to forgive you.”

“Yes, but that won’t be until, at the very least, fifty human years from now!” the medic spat, his optics burning brightly. “And I’m not sure about you but I am not about to endure half a century of murderous glances and tension filled silences.”

“Ratchet, nothing you can do will make me forgive you. You _threatened_ to terminate my daughter.”

“I didn’t THREATEN, Optimus, I merely said, in a moment of error that I will apparently never live down, that if I had the chance I would have-”

“Do. Not. Repeat. It.” The red and blue semi, his optics flaring in anger, stepped closer to the medic and loomed over him. Ratchet stood his ground and only glared into the Prime’s optics as Optimus said, “When it concerns my daughter, I consider any word said against her to be a threat.”

Ratchet thinned his lipplates and threw his servos up the air. “I give up. I give up, Optimus. I could grovel at your feet for the next millennia. You’re still not going to forgive me.”

“No.” Optimus placed his servos on his hips and turned his back to the medic. “I highly doubt so.”

The ambulance opened his mouth to retort, but found he had nothing, so he shut his mandible and settled for glaring at the Prime’s backside. Then it happened.

He found himself getting that feeling…that he’d only get when Ironhide was around…then when Optimus was around him. Before. When the Prime used to smile at him and when the Autobot Commander saved his lovely laughs for him. Before all this slag happened. Before everything, before he was struck with amnesia, before Andromeda, before he made a complete aft out of himself.

The last thing he remembered doing was grabbing his Prime, turning him around, and pressing their lipplates together, savoring the feel of Optimus almost melting under his touch.

.-.-.

Andromeda stirred in her recharge and slowly brought her optics back online. She blinked and looked up at the kind faceplates of the yellow scout staring down at her. Chirring, she stretched and placed her tiny servos over her spark chamber, looking confused.

_Beep-beep-beeeeep?_

_Chirr-click-click!_ “Mah?” she said in a worried tone.

All the yellow scout could do was bounce her up and down to take her worries away, while silently calling for Ratchet and Optimus over the communications link. They didn’t answer, but he knew they were still in the base.

The likeliest scenario was that they were arguing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *whispers* Things are gonna get _**steamy**_ in the next chapter.


	4. Regret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *whispers* _**steamy**_

When he’d come to his senses, Optimus had reeled back in shock and anger, pressing himself against the nearest wall and venting harshly. He fixed a heated glare on the medic before him.

Both mechs glared at each other for about a full minute, before Ratchet closed the distance between them once more. Softening his gaze, the medic raised a servo to touch the Prime’s faceplates. The Prime, his faceplates now showing no emotion, placed a servo over the medic’s own.

“I’m sorry, Optimus. I’m so sorry,” Ratchet breathed as he laid his forehelm to rest over the Prime’s spark chamber, blinking back mech fluid from his optics when Optimus stroked the top of his helm gently. Their EM fields mingled, and all the loathing the Prime had felt for the medic was lessened. For now. The ambulance gave a shaky sigh as he continued, “You must be tiring of me repeating those words over and over again but I do mean it. I’ll mean it for as long as I am online. I love you. I’ve grown to love Andromeda. The base would be empty without her squeals of laughter, without her throwing her toys everywhere. She is precious, and I deeply regret what I said about her. I’m so sorry, Optimus, that I hurt you like that.”

The medic sensed the changes in the Prime’s EM field. Anger, hurt, confusion, desperation, all in the same field. Finally, a hint of acceptance was there. Not very much, but there was a hint.

Optimus closed his optics and sighed. “Prove to me your sincerity,” he whispered.

Then the Prime gasped and opened his optics when the medic grabbed him by the waist and flung him none-too-gracefully to the medical berth. Ratchet’s faceplates loomed in his visual field. The most dominant emotion in the medic’s field was arousal, lust.

“You may,” the medic whispered in his audio, sending a painfully familiar shiver down the Prime’s spinal strut, “regret those words later, Optimus.” Savoring the heat emanating from the Prime’s frame, Ratchet licked his way up the Prime’s audio fin and gently bit the heating metal. Optimus felt a mixture of pleasure/pain right there, and he shuttered his optics, moaning softly.

Ratchet moved his mouth over from the blue fin to the Prime’s beautiful silver faceplates, gently peppering kisses on his cheekplates before stopping and rising up to look the Prime directly in the optics. He stroked the other audio fin with his digits and smiled. “I’d forgotten just how beautiful you look.”

Optimus replied by bucking his hips, where the medic was seated, and growling, “Flatterer.”

Chuckling, Ratchet leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to the Prime’s mouth, smiling as Optimus nipped at his lower lipplate, taking it between his upper and lower dental plates and tugging it lightly. The medic pressed at the red and blue semi’s derma, a familiar plea for entrance. Optimus granted it, allowing Ratchet’s glossa into his oral cavity and fighting with his own derma for dominance.

Nimble digits trailed their way down the Prime’s chassis, poking and prodding at the sensitive spots the medic remembered. Right under his spark chamber, directly over his abdomen, on his side.

Especially his side…

Ratchet lightly ran his digits over the Prime’s right side, not meeting the metal but close enough that disturbance was felt in the sensors, playing the field like an instrument. Optimus subconsciously leaned his body towards the touch, pulling away from the Autobot medic’s oral cavity and groaning.

“Hmm. I remember this.” Ratchet lowered his digits to rest on the Prime’s side, watching as the normally stoic Autobot Commander jerked at the sensation. “Your side was always so sensitive. I could make you overload just by pressing and releasing pressure on your side and playing the field around you like a human guitar, with only my digits. Do you want to try that again? Hmm?”

Optimus’s mouth was hanging slightly open, chassis heaving as he panted, optics darkened with lust and arousal, two emotions that Ratchet felt suited the Prime the best. “What do you want me to do, Prime? What is it you want?”

Again, the Prime bucked his hips and hissed, “Make me overload, fragger.”

“As my Prime commands.”

Ratchet decided not to try and attempt to make Optimus overload from playing his side, instead reaching down and coaxing the Autobot Commander’s overheating interface panel to open. It slid away at the first touch, and the medic closed his optics and sighed as the heady scent of lubricant reached his olfactory sensors.

It had been too long. Far too long.

Optimus, who didn’t remember ever closing his optics, reopened them in time to see the medic’s helm duck down and-

“Oh _Primusfraggit_!” the Autobot leader gasped as the medic’s glossa traced the quivering outline of his valve. Ratchet chuckled, the vibrations passing through Optimus’s pelvic region and up his spinal strut and making him shiver. The medic parted the Prime’s legs even further before delving his glossa into the lubricated port, clamping down on his thighs to keep the Autobot Commander from kicking as he gasped, his engine revving loudly.

“R-R-Ratchet! Please, I don’t want them to hear!” the Prime howled in pleasure.

The medic fixed his lipplates on the rim of the valve, suckling lightly and savoring the reactions he managed to get out of the bigger mech. Optimus’s arms shot out and clamped down on the edges of the medical berth, placing dents in the surface, his mouth open as he moaned his pleasure for the medic to hear. Feeling, savoring the sensation of the medic getting all those sensors with just his glossa.

Ratchet loved the scent and blandly sweet taste of the Prime’s lubricant. He’d missed it. If he could have he would have gladly spent his entire lifecycle between Optimus’s legs alternating between thrusting and licking, puffing up in pride at the fact that he could make the stern and stoic Autobot Commander lose all control as such.

The medic brought down a digit, tracing it over the Prime’s valve before inserting it into the wet heat. He turned it upward and craned his digit to run along the roof of Optimus’s valve, running over delicate sensors and making the Prime moan sweet melodies. Optimus twisted his hips and pushed down on the intrusions in his valve, gasping as both glossa and digits (Ratchet having added another one) pressed the sensors and sent fire up and around his neural net.

“Come on, Optimus,” Ratchet purred against the quivering valve. “Overload for me. Overload. I want to see how beautiful you look in the throes of passion.”

“R-Ratchet! Please! I don’t w-want-”

“It really has been too long for you, Optimus. My medbay and my quarters are soundproofed. Overload. Now.”

With a hard lick and a twist of his digits, the Prime arched off the berth and overloaded, shouting the medic’s name.

.-.-.

Nothing was helping calm Andromeda.

The femmeling kept fretting and crying. When Bumblebee tried to set her down she tried to crawl away as fast as her tiny body could take her, searching for her carrier. Arcee had already tried cheering her up with every toy that the Prime’s daughter had been spoiled with. Not even Keet helped. Bulkhead had tried playing with her, zooming her around the main room and through the corridors as if she were an airplane.

Andromeda only kept sobbing, whimpering “Mah!” every couple of minutes. Her wings drooped, her silver faceplates were streaked with dried tears, and her vocalizer seemed so close to shorting out.

“What do we do?” Arcee asked worriedly as she bounced the little seekerling in her arms, patting her on the back. Andromeda hiccupped and cried for her carrier again.

“Have you guys tried contacting Optimus?”

Beep!

“Okay, have you tried Ratchet?”

BEEP!

“They’ve probably killed each other in there,” Arcee muttered bitterly. “Try it again. Keep at it.”

.-.-.

After their second shared overload Ratchet had pulled him up and dragged them to the room right next door, which were his quarters. Twice Ratchet wrung two overloads from him using only his digits and his glossa. Their first shared overload the medic had lifted his legs to rest on his shoulders as he pounded into the Prime’s already sensitive valve. The second time around Optimus reversed on the berth so the medic laid over his back, gently sheathing his erect spike into his stretched valve, and jackhammered his way towards overload.

The berth was in a corner, but it was too far for both mechs. They crashed to the floor, breaking concrete, as Ratchet laid on his backstrut and watched through aroused and hooded optics as the Prime stuck his fingers inside his own port, gasping at the sensations and dragging his digits over overwrought sensors.

“Don’t overload yourself Optimus,” Ratchet ordered in a half-whisper.

The Prime huffed and raised himself over the medic’s spike, dragging the wet rim over the dribbing tip and smirking at the wanton expressions on the medic’s faceplates. This time he was in charge.

“I’ll overload myself when I feel like it, Ratchet,” the Autobot Commander growled before lowering himself all the way to take the medic’s spike in. He closed his optics and vented a breath of hot air as every sensor in his valve was touched, pressed against, set afire. Optimus rolled his hips slowly, sighing as liquid fire raced through his neural circuitry. “Primus,” he breathed.

Ratchet moaned at the sensation of his spike encased in such velvet, exquisite heat. His processor was unable to make much of anything except for the fact that he and the Prime were currently fragging, and that _ohmyPrimus_ it felt so wonderful to be in this position again. It’d been far too long for his liking. This was what the humans called heaven, wasn’t it? The one place in the universe he’d prefer to be.

“Ah, Ratchet!” the Prime cried as the medic thrust upward, dragging his spike along each and every valve sensor. Optimus rolled his hips again and lifted himself up and down on the medic’s spike, gasping as he increased the tempo.

The floor cracked even more underneath them as their bodies clanged against each other, as their moans and groans and gasps of arousal rang through the air. Optimus placed his servos on each side the medic, holding onto the broken ground as he pistoned his hips up and down, up and down, dragging along the medic’s spike, coating the mechhood in his lubricant.

“Optimus, I’m close. I’m close,” Ratchet murmured, raising his servos to grasp the Autobot Commander’s hips. His optics were dark, almost a navy blue. His mouth hung open as he groaned with every rise and fall of the semi’s hips.

“Then let go. Don’t let me hold you back, Ratchet.”

A few clangs later the medic stilled and bucked his hips upward, gasping out the red and blue mech’s name. Optimus moaned, following the medic into overload, and slowed down his rhythm, putting a servo to his lower midsection as transfluid filled him for a third time. The Prime was about to fall on Ratchet, exhausted from all the activity, and yelled out in surprise when the medic grabbed him and pulled him up, dragging him over to the berth.

“Again, Ratchet?” Optimus rasped out as he was half-thrown, half-lain on his right side and the medic slid onto the berth behind him, the Prime’s back to the medic’s front again. Only this time-

“You don’t have to do anything but lie there and moan like the beautiful whore you are, Optimus,” Ratchet breathed against a finial. “I’ll do the work.”

The medic grabbed the Prime’s left leg and hooked it over his hip. Optimus buried his faceplate in his arms and moaned loudly as he felt the tip of Ratchet’s spike bump against the wet rim of his valve. The ambulance reached around with his servo and massaged the rim of the semi’s valve as he shifted forward, drawing a cross between a moan and a groan from the Prime’s vocalizer. Ratchet’s optic covers flickered as he savored the sensation again, and began thrusting.

Both their communications links pinged urgently. Ratchet couldn’t give a second thought to it and only continued with his motions, while Optimus tentatively answered ::Yes Bumblebee?::

::Beep-beep-beep!::

::I do not know when I will be done. Accompany Andromeda into my quarters. Soothe her to recharge. If she needs a feeding there are some backup bottles underneath my berth::

::BEEEP!::

::I-I, okay, I will calm her down:: The Prime was shocked that he’d managed to keep an even-tone while the Autobot medic hammered into his body. He moaned and gasped as the thick spike exited and reentered him rather harshly.

_::Andromeda?::_

It was easy to tell from her somber quizzical _::Mah?::_ that she had been crying.

_::Do not fret, my little one. I am occupied at the moment. Bumblebee will take care of you until my return::_

_::Mah!::_

_::I love you, my daughter::_

Optimus closed the bond, and a mere second later he was pushed to his sixth overload of the night, arms grabbing the edge of the berth and howling Ratchet’s name to the stars. A few thrusts later Ratchet went still, and his moan announced yet another flood of transfluid.

Both mechs lay in silence for a few minutes, just listening to each other vent and ex-vent, to their systems working. Ratchet pulled his now-limp spike out of the Prime’s valve and sat up, looking down at Optimus’s half-hooded blue optics. He raised a servo and gently caressed the Prime’s cheekplate, murmuring, “Does that prove it, Optimus?”

The Prime only breathed deeply and closed his optics the rest of the way. Optimus shifted on the berth so he was on his back instead of his side, and reopened his optics to look his medic right in the optics. “Spark merge with me.”

Ratchet didn’t waste any time. He laid himself over Optimus’s body, and opened his chassis. The Prime looked at the medic’s life force bared to him, and reopened his own. Their sparks pulled toward each other, tendrils linking until the outer shells were merged but not enough to become one.

Ratchet saw everything that was Optimus. He saw his past, his present. How hurt the Autobot leader had been hearing him say those words against Andromeda. He now knew just how much it really did hurt. Then he saw the inside of a dark room, and pain ravaging his entire frame, then the fragile cry of a newspark. The medic felt such an overwhelming feeling of joy, love, adoration, and protectiveness from the Prime’s end of the merge as he looked upon the first sparkling born in millennia, coated in birth fluids, so helpless and beautiful and shrieking at the harsh cold around her. Andromeda was his world.

Optimus finally saw just how much Ratchet regretted his words. Saw how much the medic loved him. Ratchet was willing to spend the rest of his lifecycle begging for the Prime to forgive him. He honestly didn’t mind if he and Optimus never reunited. He just wanted the peace of knowing that the Autobot leader had forgiven him for saying such horrible words. The medic wasn’t lying when he said he’d grown to love Andromeda. The Prime saw a number of times, Ratchet playing on the floor with Andromeda and the little femme looking up at him with adoration in her optics.

“She recognized me when we rescued you two. I was the only other one she recognized. From my voice. She heard it within you,” Ratchet murmured, his optics closed and his forehelm touching the Prime’s forehelm. Optimus raised a servo to the back of the medic’s helm and pulled him in just a bit closer, and gently touched their lipplates together.

Ratchet lowered a servo to the Prime’s side, and began playing the sensors there while Optimus reached his other servo down and curled it around the medic’s now-lifting spike, stroking it and thumbing the tip. It didn’t take long for the both of them to reach their overload, Optimus shouting his medic’s name and Ratchet groaning as his transfluid spilled over the Prime’s servo and midsection.

Their sparks disentangled themselves and retreated back to their respective spark chambers. Both mechs closed their chassis plates. Optimus turned over on his right side once more, and Ratchet scooted in behind him, his front to the Prime’s back again. After a few minutes of silence, the medic sighed and murmured, “Do you forgive me, Optimus? Will you ever be able to forgive me?”

Optimus Prime’s optics had closed in recharge by then, but the semi gently placed a servo over his midsection, discomforted by the fluids sloshing inside of him. Ratchet reached over and intertwined his digits with the Prime’s, and had to hide his giddiness when the Prime mumbled, “You’re getting there, Ratchet.”


	5. Morning After

He didn’t sleep well, but he slept very heavily.

The Prime stirred in his recharge, sighing and awakening, opening his optics and looking down. His long legs were twined with those of the medic, and at some point during the night Ratchet had cleaned the both of them of the interfacing fluids that stained them when both he’d slipped into a heavy sleep. One of the medic’s arms was thrown over his midsection, and the medic’s faceplate was nuzzled into his backplates, a smile on his lips.

There was no smile or anything happy of the sort for Optimus.

Disentangling their legs and slowly rising from the berth, the Prime made his way over to the Autobot medic’s private washracks. He seemed to be walking in a daze, and it took him a few tries to grab a firm hold of the knob and twist it to activate the showerhead. The cleansing solution cascaded over his frame in a warm sheet. He found the small buffer Ratchet used to buff out scratches in his arm and began using it on his body, not keen on having so much interfacing evidence showing to the others. Especially to his daughter.

Optimus held the buffer in a servo after getting the scratches between his thighs out and let the warm solution wash over his faceplates, reaching up with the device and buffing the scratches in his chassis plating out. He stopped and groaned when he remembered the sparkmerge. He’d been the one to ask for it, he remembered. Opening himself up to the medic so soon after…

He didn’t know what to feel anymore. His emotions were everywhere, scattered. The Prime did admit to himself, though, that the night before was amazing.

This morning after, as the humans called it, not so much.

Optimus deactivated the solvent shower and turned on the second knob, which was just for water to clean away the soap suds. His sensors were still finely tuned from last night, and the cold wave of hydrogen and oxygen that hit him made him shiver. Then he jolted when he heard a familiar voice float in the air, “Care for company?”

The Prime said nothing, only stepping aside to make room for the medic’s bulky frame in the room. Ratchet looked a bit too eager, the Prime thought, as he stepped into the shower and shivered under the assault of cold water. Optimus only looked forward again and closed his optics, raising his faceplates to the water.

A delicate servo reached and gently grabbed the buffer from the Prime’s servo, the medic’s voice murmuring over the fall of the liquid, “I’ll buff your back Optimus.”

Optimus felt prickling sensations pass over his back with each passing second. He lessened the pressure of the water, and moaned when Ratchet passed the buffer over a sensitive point on his back strut. He felt the medic stall for a brief moment before continuing his ministrations.

“I’m sorry for jumping on you like that Optimus.”

“No, no, it’s… it’s…”

“Don’t tell me it’s fine, Optimus,” Ratchet cut in. “I know it’s not. I can tell by your body language.”

“Well, what else do I have to respond, Ratchet?”

“You know you don’t always have to have an answer, Optimus.” Ratchet reached around and turned off the water stream at the same time he stopped the buffer, his work having been done. “I’m just apologizing for overstepping my boundaries.”

Optimus sighed. “Well, apology accepted Ratchet. This apology, however.”

“I know. Did you really mean it last night?”

“Did I mean what?”

“When I asked you if you could forgive me. You responded that I was getting there. Did you really mean it, Optimus?”

“Yes. I did.”

“So…” the medic tried not to get his hopes up but he failed when he said, “does this mean that we-”

“Ratchet.” Optimus said sternly, fixing him with a reproachful look. He walked out of the washracks, aware of the ambulance following him. The Prime stepped over to the medic’s doors, about to exit, before turning around and placing a servo on the medic’s shoulder. Ratchet looked up at him with a mixture of defeat and hope in his optics, and the Autobot Commander sighed. “I believe last night was a bit too rushed, Ratchet. I need time to think, as overused as it sounds. I’m sorry to have gotten your hopes up.”

Silence fell over both mechs for a brief minute, the only sound in the air of their systems working. Such practice seemed to be norm between the two mechs. Optimus removed his servo from Ratchet’s shoulder and murmured, “I’m going to have to go and attend to Andromeda.” The Prime turned back to the doors and stepped through them as they opened. As he did so, he heard Ratchet ask, “Do you regret last night, Optimus?”

The Prime looked over his shoulder and smiled at the medic just as the doors closed. He could have sworn Ratchet shot him a smile as well.

.-.-.

When he entered his quarters the first thing he saw was a large pile of Andromeda’s plush toys on the floor.

The next thing he saw was Bumblebee collapsed and recharging on said bed of plush toys.

After that he saw his little femmeling curled up awkwardly in her crib, Keet thrown aside and her blanket twisted in between her legs. Optimus noticed dried tear streaks on her cheekplates. He quickly reached in and grabbed the seekerling, holding her to his spark. Andromeda stirred and yawned, curling her servos into fists and opening her optics. As soon as her processor registered that her carrier was holding her she brightened up and began chirring.

Bumblebee opened his own optics and immediately leapt to his pedes, beeping his apologies to the Prime. Optimus only smiled and waved his free servo, saying, “There is nothing to apologize for, Bumblebee. Thank you for taking care of Andromeda while I was otherwise occupied.”

The yellow scout bounced up and down on his pedes, and quickly exited the Prime’s quarters.

Andromeda began nuzzling her carrier’s chassis plates, flickering her wings and chirping affectionately. She missed her carrier during the night, and had woken up twice to cry when she remembered that her carrier was away and that the yellow scout was the one taking care of her. She trusted him, but not to the level that she invested all her trust and faith in her carrier.

Optimus brought her up to his faceplates and kissed her on the cheek, murmuring apologies to the little femme.

.-.-.

Arcee was up and working at the main room, having traded a shift with Bulkhead for scanning the world for strange Decepticon activity. As usual, as on days before, and ever since the night of Andromeda’s birth aboard the _Nemesis_ and the rescue from the Black Forest, there was no activity whatsoever. It was becoming a tedious activity.

The femme sighed. The kids were in school, not there to relieve her boredom. She’d be happy to even hear Miko and Jack bickering about how much a musical legacy Slash Monkey would have a century from now.

Then a blip appeared on the screen. Right in Siberia. Right in Tunguska. Where they’d had that battle.

A blank avatar appeared on the screen, static hit her audios, and a distant, but all-too-familiar-voice streamed through the white noise.

::Prime?! C’mon, work ya blasted frequency! Prime?::

Arcee had to steel herself. She had to be dreaming. She replied back. ::Ironhide? This is Arcee, come in Ironhide::

The mech sounded elated as he replied ::‘rcee!::

“Optimus! Ratchet, Bumblebee, Bulkhead!”Arcee turned her head and called for her teammates, her optics wide and her spark pulsing rapidly. “Get over here! Now!”

The other four flooded into the main room. Arcee stepped back, allowing the Prime to step forward with Andromeda in his arms and reply. ::This is Optimus Prime. To whom am I speaking?::

A gruff voice, loud and happy, shouted ::Prime! Ne’er though’ I’d hear ya again!::

Optimus steeled himself as Ratchet’s optics widened in recognition. He looked down at Andromeda playing with Keet in his arms as Ratchet whispered into the communication link ::Ironhide? Is that you?::


	6. Reuniting

Breakdown bolted from their berth in the early morning before Earth’s Sun showed itself. Knockout lay on the slab of metal, his optics open and staring at the ceiling as he listened to his bondmate hurl whatever energon he’d taken in into the drain in their washracks.

“Are you still certain, Breakdown?” he asked softly, his voice floating through the room. Breakdown retched twice before there was a lull in the storm and he replied, “I’m sure, Knockout.”

“We can’t keep it. We can’t keep it aboard here. Do you know what Megatron would do it? What he would do to us? We can’t hide a sparkling here.”

“Don’t you think I don’t know that?” Breakdown’s pained voice came from the washrack before he retched again. “I’m pretty sure if Megatron didn’t kill it he’d probably take it from us and raise it as his own in place of that brat he had with the Autobot.”

“Exactly. I wouldn’t put it past Megatron to do such a thing…”

For another Earth half-hour the blue mech continued purging. Knockout got up twice to check on his bondmate, but Breakdown only looked up and glared at him, undigested energon staining his lower lip and faceplate, and the Decepticon medic could only retreat back to their berth. He felt helpless in this situation. Even more so than the last time. He’d emptied his entire gestation tank and snipped the lines and wires that connected it to the spark chamber so there wouldn’t be a chance of him sparking and having to terminate again. It was permanent. He found himself thinking that he probably should have done the same with the bulky blue mech.

“I’ll go and get us energon. And I’m giving you half of mine, Breakdown, no complaints. You need it.”

Breakdown only threw up the last dregs left in his tank and moaned in pain.

.-.-.

Optimus again handed Andromeda to Bumblebee. The femme whined and stretched her arms out for her carrier, optics tearing up. She had just managed to see him again, and now she had to let him go again. Her face fell and she began crying. And again, nothing could soothe her as Bumblebee waved Keet in front of her optics and began bouncing her up and down in his arms.

“I will return, Andromeda. I love you.” The Prime leaned down and planted a kiss to the sparkling’s forehelm, cupping her face in his servo before turning and disappearing through the groundbridge with Ratchet and Bulkhead at his side, Arcee closing the rip in space and time behind them.

“Mah! Mah!” Andromeda cried for her carrier’s return and began shrieking, pounding her little fists on the yellow scout’s arms. Bumblebee beeped in confusion, looking over at an equally confused Arcee. The Prime sparkling began squirming and tried to claw her way out of Bumblebee’s arms. The two older bots panicked and the yellow scout quickly sat down and set the sparkling on the ground. It did nothing. All Andromeda did was continue screaming and pounding on the concrete floor.

.-.-.

Optimus could feel Andromeda’s swirling angry emotions through their bond. He closed his optics and sighed as he stepped through the groundbridge, putting up a block in their bond. He could not afford to let his daughter’s agitated emotions affect him. He could already feel Ratchet’s emotions swirling around him. The medic was…how could he describe it? It definitely wasn’t anger, or joy…

The best the Prime could describe it as was a sort of apprehension.

At the other end of the bridge it was becoming dark. The sky was streaked hues of orange and red and purples and pinks. The ship they previously thought was a Decepticon transport had crashed into the ground, and at the opening was a very familiar face.

The groundbridge closed behind Bulkhead, Ratchet, and Optimus Prime. The three of them faced the new mech, recognition and relief dawning on all of their faceplates.

The medic was the first one to break the silence. Optimus watched, his spark twisting into itself, as the ambulance approached the bulky crimson mech. The two mechs stared at each other for what seemed like all of eternity before the smaller one fell into the taller mech’s arms. Ironhide caught Ratchet’s frame, murmuring soothing Cybertronian dialect in his gruff voice.

Optimus Prime’s spark shattered and he looked away, blinking back the wave of tears he didn’t know had sprung up to his optics. Neither Ratchet nor Ironhide saw the hurt expression on the Prime’s faceplates nor did they see the awkward comforting pat that Bulkhead gave to Optimus on his shoulder.

::You going to be alright, boss?::

::I will be fine, Bulkhead. I will be fine…::

.-.-.

This felt like a dream cycle.

It had been so long. So, so long, since he’d laid optics on this mech. The last time he had, they’d kissed and Ironhide had promised him he would be back from the raid soon. Soon, he’d said.

That had been almost fifty-thousand stellar cycles ago. He’d given up all hope of ever reuniting with the mech again, but as he looked upon his visage, daring to believe it real, Optimus's words from so long ago ran through his processor: "The past has a way of catching up with the present."

Indeed it had.

Ratchet lifted a servo to the taller mech’s silver faceplates dotted and marked by battle scars, caressing the cut just above his optic. Ironhide smiled down at him, and a warm gruff voice murmured, “‘ello there.”

Ratchet lifted his other servo so he held Ironhide’s face in both hands. He gave a shaky sigh of relief and whispered back, “You’re alive. I can’t believe it. You’re alive.”

“Ah course I’m ali’e. It’ll take a lot more than an army ah ‘cons ta kill me.”

The medic’s optics were wide and bright blue. His servos started to shake slightly, then his legs failed him. Ironhide quickly caught the ambulance and chuckled, murmuring, “I‘m glad ta be back wi’ ya.”

.-.-.

Andromeda shrieked.

Kicked the concrete walls.

Banged her helm against them.

Curled up into a fetal position in a corner and continued to wail at top volume, her wings arched up high to show her anger and agitation. Bumblebee and Arcee did everything they could to calm down the little femmeling, but the sparkling kept being difficult, pushing away servos and banging her fists on the floor and walls.

“What’s wrong with you? You never act like this,” Arcee mumbled to herself in frustration, placing her digits at each side of her helm and adding pressure to alleviate some of her processor ache. “You’re always such a good sparkling. What’s wrong, Andromeda?”

BEEP! Bumblebee made one last ditch attempt to cheer up Andromeda by picking her up and gently tossing her toward the ceiling and catching her, repeating the same thing over and over again. Mercifully, the femmeling’s cries ceased, but only for a short while. After the fifteenth time her face fell, she began sobbing and trying to claw at her spark chamber and at her abdomen.

Beep-BEEP-bep! The yellow scout cradled the little femme to his chassis and tried to stop her from further scratching her armor. Andromeda pushed his servos aside and stopped crying. Her vocalizer, hoarse from screaming so much, only croaked out rusty whimpers and whines, and she curled in towards Bumblebee’s chassis plates, falling into recharge while whining, “Mah! Mah. Mah.”

.-.-.

“It has been quite a long while since we have had a new arrival to our ranks,” Optimus mustered the best smile he could, directing it at Ironhide. His grin faltered when Ironhide said nothing, as Ratchet and Ironhide were busy gazing deeply into each other’s optics. Being leader, he composed himself again and continued, “So this is a blessing from Primus, the arrival of an old friend and proven warrior.”

He adjusted a fussing Andromeda in his arms. The femme made a sound akin to a hiss and pulled away from him. Her wings were still arched in agitation and she crawled up so she was sitting in the crook of his arm, her helm resting on his shoulder blade. The femmeling still fixed a hateful stare at her carrier, which he ignored in favor of Ironhide’s sudden inquiry. “So who’s the sire ah this lil’ bitlet?”

Again, Optimus was grateful for the fact that his daughter bore no resemblance to her Decepticon co-creator. He saw Ratchet bristle and look his way, saw Bulkhead, Bumblebee, and Arcee glance between him and the sparkling warily. _No_ , he told himself. _I can’t tell him._ It went against his morals to lie, but here was Ironhide, having flown in across the stars for thousands of stellar cycles avoiding Decepticons and searching for other Autobots. There were far more important things to worry about than something he felt was trivial.

“I regret,” he began slowly, looking down at his pedes then back up again, looking the red mech in the optics, “that I cannot provide you with the information you are asking for. Andromeda’s co-creator… SIRE, since I am the one that carried her-”

Ironhide only huffed and arched an optic ridge.

“-is unknown to all of us.”

“How’s tha’, Prime?” Ironhide grumped, removing his arms from around the Autobot medic and crossing the over his chassis plating.

“I was on patrol almost a year ago when something attacked me.”

“Wha’ ‘ttacked ya?”

“That I do not know. But whomever it was that attacked me was quick in knocking me out. I woke up about an hour later with Ratchet and Bumblebee-”

The two mechs he’d implicated nodded, approving of this cover.

“-lifting me up and carrying me back through the groundbridge through base. When Ratchet checked over me he discovered that I’d been sparked up.”

The medic quickly crossed over to the monitors, pulling up the medical files he’d plugged into the main database. Two pictures crossed over the screen, right next to each other. One was all of Optimus, perfectly fine during a routine checkup dated a week before the other picture, which was of a small spark inside of the Prime and showed the severe toll it was taking on his frame.

When the ones in the know knew perfectly well that at the date of the before picture, Optimus had still been aboard the _Nemesis._

“And that is how this little one came to be,” he finished. Andromeda hissed and curled into herself tightly, closing her optics.

Ironhide seemed satisfied with the and stepped forward to examine Andromeda even closer. She sensed the presence of a strange ‘bot nearby, and she opened her optics, looking up in confusion at the strange faceplates. The red mech smiled and patted the Prime sparkling on her helm before saying, “Thought my sight needed fixin’, but those really are wings. A Seeker?”

“Yes,” Optimus beamed down at Andromeda. “She will be.”

Andromeda cooed at Ironhide, then looked back up at her carrier without emotion on her faceplates. But her optics spoke all, dark and full of loathing. She still curled up into him and raised her wings in a “V” formation, falling into recharge.

This was not normal for the normally happy sparkling. As Optimus left the other bots to get reacquainted, he felt his leader façade crack. He looked down at the agitated and miserable femmeling he held in his arms, sighing. He entered the code to get into his quarters and put her to bed. As the doors were closing he caught sight of Ironhide and Ratchet walking, servo in servo, to the very end of the hallway towards Ratchet’s quarters and the medbay.

When the door was securely shut he placed Andromeda in her berth, covering her with her blanket and putting Keet next to her. He headed over to his berth, curled into himself, and his façade broke.

Primes rarely, if ever, cried. Yet today, he did so, tears streaming down the flat surface of his faceplates and intakes hitching. He cursed himself and his life. He forgave Ratchet somewhat, but now he was just dejected.

If you love something set it free. If it comes back to you, it's yours. If it doesn't, it never was.

He set it free. It came back. And it went away…again.

He’d lost Megatron. Now he’d lost Ratchet. And for some reason his only child looked at him like she wanted to kill him.

Optimus clapped a servo to his mouth to stifle his sobs of grief. Andromeda only turned over in her sleep and muttered something angrily.


	7. Bond

He couldn't help but wonder, as the red mech pounded into him, just how Optimus was feeling at the moment. He'd been so occupied with the fact that his mate was back, and in one piece nonetheless, that he'd completely forgotten about the Autobot Commander. How he was feeling, seeing Ironhide return to them, to him, after so long.

It was just the day before that the both of them had been in here, joining and thrusting, panting and groaning, overloading. Optimus had even said so himself, that the medic was getting there to full forgiveness.

Ironhide thrust into him, hard, and hit a sensor node in the very back of his valve. The medic gasped and his entire world collapsed into a white point that exploded into stars. He grasped the edges of the berth and moaned Ironhide's name, riding out his overload. Ironhide grabbed onto his hips, thrusting a few more times at a frantic pace before going still and shouting as his transfluids filled Ratchet's valve. The weapons specialist and the medic lay in the berth for a while, curled up next to each other and making up for millions of stellar cycles of lost time.

As the red mech flipped him over to his back and began his thrusting anew, Ratchet felt his spark clench in fear. Optimus Prime probably hated him with a passion after today. Any progress that may have been made was probably now lost.

.-.-.

Optimus Prime was miserable.

He closed his optics and willed his persistent need to throw up away as he bounced Andromeda up and down in his arms. Ever since the day that the new arrivals had come to Earth, she refused to behave. She refused to hug him, give him kisses, snuggle up to him like she would do so before.

Now she insisted on crying and screaming and hitting his chassis and (when she had access) his abdomen. He would put her to sleep with her plushies and immediately sink into recharge, then wake up with half of the stuffed toys on him, and the other half and her blanket thrown on the floor, and her angry blue optics glaring at him. Every time he tried to pick her up to try and give some attempt at comforting her, she refused to stay close to him and tried to fight her way out of his arms. She drew paint from his armor as she clawed at him.

At this moment she was grunting and squirming, trying to get away from her carrier and digging the tips of her digits into his arms, scratching the paint and denting it.

“Shh, please, little one,” he begged as she began to shriek in agitation. “Why are you acting like this?”

Andromeda glared at him through tear-filled optics and hit him on the helm. She had never hit him like that. He opened up their bond, and was hit with a tsunami of hurt, agitation, abandonment, jealousy, resentment, confusion, among the many other emotions he had trouble distinguishing in her EM field and in his spark. He closed it again. This was exactly why he’d closed it in the first place. Nothing, not even going to the other end of the base and murmuring soothing words in Cybertronian to her worked, when it previously did and made sparkling-sitting her much easier.

He finally decided that nothing he did would work today, and placed her inside her little berth. She merely glared up at him. How such a small sparkling could have so much hate in her was far beyond him.

"Why do you hate me so much, my little one?" he mournfully asked her. Her glare at her carrier softened only slightly, and her facial expression became unreadable. "What did I do to deserve this treatment, my sparkling? How did I hurt you?"

As if to answer her carrier, Andromeda looked pointedly at his midsection, flinching away toward the far corner of her crib. She awkwardly pulled her blanket over her and turned her back to her carrier, wings arched high in irritation and agitation as they had been for the past two weeks.

He felt another wave coming. He placed his servos to his mouth, closing his optics, and praying _Please don’t make me sick. Please don’t make me have to retch._ It didn’t work. Optimus rushed to his private washracks, falling to the floor on his servos and knees and vomiting the energon he'd managed to take in earlier in the morning. His entire frame shook in pain as he retched undigested energon and he groaned, wiping his lipplates with the back of his servo.  He jerked again, and dipped his helm down as more energon forced its way up. And Andromeda began wailing.

Optimus stared at the ground and drain, the unattractive liquid flowing away, and listened to his daughter’s cries of distress. He clenched his servos into fists, touched his forehelm to the floor, and wished that the ground would open up and swallow him whole.

.-.-.

“Bond wi’h me Ratchet.”

The white and red medic opened his optics in surprise and turned his helm to look at the weapons specialist. Ironhide was intimidating by his sheer size, but the way he looked at him made the medic think he was a youngling again.

“Are you serious, Ironhide?”

“Ratch I was missin’ for so long.” The weapons specialist raised himself on his forearms and locked optics with the Autobot medic. "The thought ah bein' reunited wi'h ya was the only thing that kept meh goin' this entire time. I want this, and if I die tomorrow-"

"Please don't say that."

"-I just wan' ta die knowin' I bonded ta the mos' beautiful mech I'd ever laid optics on."

Ratchet rolled over in the berth and cupped his consort's face with his servo, smiling at him. It was like nothing had changed. The medic felt like they were still young, still on Cybertron in the early days of their relationship. When all they would do in their off-time was lay together, talking about life, and a future for them. Oh, Primus, and the interfacing. Processor-blowing and passionate, him wrapping his legs around Ironhide's waist, grabbing onto the bulkier mech's shoulders as he thrust frantically into the tight velvet heat. Overloading together.

Nothing was more perfect.

The medic leaned over and nuzzled the red mech’s faceplate with his own. Ironhide reached over and gently caught Ratchet’s helm in his servos, leaning in and planting a chaste kiss to the ambulance’s lipplates. “Please Ratch.”

Tracing a circular pattern on the red mech’s helm, the medic sighed as he continued, “I was only suppos’d ta wait another stellar cycle ‘til we finally bonded. I end up waitin’ hundr’ds a thous’nds ah stellar cycles tah set mah optics on ya again, seein’ yer beautiful face each time I went tah recharge. Case I died, I wan’ed ya tah be the last thin’ I’d see.”

Honestly, the medic told himself, this was the most romantic that Ironhide would ever get. Ratchet removed his servo from Ironhide’s helm and stared into the red mech’s hopeful optics.

He thought of Optimus. The Prime had avoided him like the cybonic plague since that night. Whenever Ratchet or Ironhide or the both of them entered a room the Prime made any excuse to leave the vicinity, usually mumbling something about needing to check on Andromeda. Ratchet felt his spark clench in pity and regret, wondering whether their little tryst was the right thing to do.

At least the Prime didn’t look at him like he wanted to murder him. But Optimus was still eluding him, spending most of his time locked up in his quarters.

Ratchet didn’t know what to feel. But he still caressed the scar above the red warrior’s optic and murmured, “I just can’t say no to you, Ironhide.”

The weapons specialist’s grin could have revived Cybertron itself.

.-.-.

“Optimus, are you okay?”

The Prime passed a squirming and defiant Andromeda into Bumblebee’s arms, watching him go off to his own quarters. Looking at the smallest of the human children the Prime mustered the best smile he could, even though he was hurting inside. Everywhere ached, and to top it off his need to throw up hadn’t subsided any. It was already three, going into four weeks of whatever it was that had him sick like this.

It was getting to the point that the thought of going to see Ratchet about what was ailing him looked like a better option every passing day.

“I will be fine, Rafael.”

“Are you sure?” Miko piped up from her place near the TV, her brown eyes blinking curiously up at him. “You’ve been like this for almost a month. Have you gone to see Ratchet?”

“No.”

“How come?”

“Because…” the Prime’s words faltered and faded. He knew why, but he didn’t feel the need to explain the exact reason to the children. They had already seemed traumatized enough when he and Ratchet had explained their method of reproduction to them, and also after Ratchet explained the _entire_ birthing sequence to them sometime after Andromeda’s arrival.

He briefly wondered if Ratchet had passed some sort of disease to him.

 _No,_ he thought. _Ratchet would have exhibited those exact same symptoms._

He was saved from further pestering when Ironhide walked in followed by a sickly looking Ratchet. Optimus was quick to turn back to the monitors, keeping his expression stoic as he heard the two mates quickly kiss each other (followed by a chorus of “ugh” and “Could you not do that out in public please?!” from the children) and Ironhide tell the medic, “I’ll be back this time, promise ya Ratch.”

“If you go missing on your first scheduled patrol here on Earth I will never forgive you.”

Well, that sounded familiar to the Prime’s audios.

Ironhide chuckled. Bulkhead stepped over and both mechs took on their Earth vehicle modes, Ironhide having chosen to adopt the form of a red and black GMC Topkick. The kids looked at the large truck in awe as the two sped out to patrol.

Optimus kept his back to the rest of the room until he heard Ratchet retreat back to his quarters.

“You’re not okay.”

“No, Miko, I am not.”

As if on cue another fresh wave of nausea kicked in, right at the same time he felt an agonizing cramp in his lower midsection. Optimus jerked and clapped a servo over his mouth, pressing the other servo to his midsection to try and alleviate the pain. It didn’t hold anything back, as usual. The children watched with worried and wide eyes as the Autobot Commander ran back into the hallway.

.-.-.

He stroked the white field around his spark, awestruck. Fluid sprung to his optics, and Ratchet couldn’t help the wide grin that crossed his faceplates.

Ironhide had sat in shock when Ratchet had bared his spark to him, showing him the white aura around his life force that showed they couldn’t merge sparks for a while. The red mech grabbed the white and red mech and planted a kiss to his lipplates. It was too soon, for both of them. Then again, he’d deemed it too soon for them to bond all those stellar cycles ago.

One of them could die. Or both of them could. And they’d wonder in their last moments about all the things they promised each other that would never have come to pass.

Ratchet placed his other servo on his midsection, smiling, thinking of the little life that was forming in there. Completely unaware of the world around carrier, only aware of the world that _was_ carrier. He’d get very large and round, if Ironhide’s dimensions were anything to go by. Then he groaned, thinking of the three humans gawking at him as he waddled around like a stuffed duck.

“Well, looks like it’ll be quite a difficult next few weeks,” he muttered to himself as he retracted his servo from his spark and closed his chassis plates. He placed a servo over his abdominal plating and smiled again.

BANG!

The medic jumped and looked around wildly, his spark jumping in surprise.

BANG BANG BANG!

Someone was hammering on the doors to the medical bay, which he’d locked to afford himself some privacy. Ratchet hesitantly stepped over and disabled the locks. A second later the doors split open and something threw itself at him, pinning him up and against the wall. When he got his bearings the medic looked into the furious and angry optics of the Prime. He felt hot, angry air on him, and he felt Optimus’s servos and arms quaking in rage.

“What. Have. You. Done. To. Me?!” Optimus growled from somewhere deep in his chassis, his livid voice echoing around the room.

“What in the name of Cybertron are you talking about?” Ratchet asked in genuine fear and confusion. He squawked when Optimus released the grip he had on him and he dropped to the ground. The medic composed himself, shaking his helm and limbs. He looked up, his optics went wide and he almost fainted at the sight of Optimus’s bared spark, completely surrounded by an aura the color of white.


	8. Mistake

_Optimus burst into his quarters and ran for the washracks, keeling over onto his knees and servos and vomiting undigested energon as his entire body was racked with agonizing pain, mostly concentrated in his lower abdomen. Between retches he let out choked sobs, and during a lull he turned on the showerhead to wash away the fluids. He shifted so he was kneeling down, curling into his body and letting himself cry, pressing his servos to his lower abdomen as the pain only got worse._

_“What did I do to deserve this?” he asked Primus, opening optics he didn’t remember ever closing and looking up at the ceiling through the shower of liquid, tears streaming down his faceplates. “Primus, how did I anger you? How did I anger my daughter? Why is this happening to me?”_

_Yet another wave of nausea and pain hit. He lurched and threw up some of the dregs left in his digestive tank as the cleansing liquid fell upon his aching frame. More bile forced its way up, and the Prime stretched over the drain, steadying himself on shaky arms and purging. His throat tubing burned. His optics were flooded with tears, and he shut them against the agony. He wanted to lay down on the floor and disappear into nothing, so he’d be free from this pain in his body and the pain of having his daughter hate him so much. He’d be free of fighting this damned war against the Sire of his child, the one who’d forced him to…_

_Wait…_

_The Prime remembered everything that Ratchet had told him when they’d first discovered the white aura around his spark, the tell-tale sign that he was sparked._

_Pressing his right servo to his midsection as yet more pain radiated through his body, the Prime opened his optics and looked at his reflection in the liquid, parting his chassis plates._

_…no._

_Anger, rage, fury, disbelief coursed through his neural net at the sight of his blue spark encased in a white static field. Not bothering to turn off the stream of water and soap the Prime stood up and immediately headed for the medical bay._

.-.-.

“Please tell me this is some sort of trick of the light, Optimus.”

The Prime looked at the medic with murder in his optics. He closed his chassis plates and growled as the pain in his midsection intensified. “I am hoping to wake up and realize that this is some sort of horrible dream. But with each passing minute I realize that it will not happen.”

“Who’s the other creator?” Ratchet asked before he could help himself. He knew. He already knew.

Optimus’s infuritated expression slacked, and his optics changed from fury to hurt. The Prime thinned his lipplates and only replied, “I’ve interfaced with only one other since my daughter’s birth, Ratchet. Who else could it be?”

“I…I…but Ironhide-”

Again, the weapon’s specialist. Both Ratchet and Ironhide had been his closest friends during the war, but recent events had only served to make the Prime feel some animosity towards the medic and the Wrecker, if only because they’d resumed their courtship not even a full solar cycle after he and Ratchet had just begun to patch up their own relationship. He hadn’t talked to Ratchet since then, and it was so painful to even be in the medic’s presence at this moment.

“Ironhide and I are now bonded and we’re now sparked,” he heard the medic say from a far off distance.

The Prime blinked and tilted his helm at the ambulance, optics wide. “You and Ironhide…”

“We’re bonded, and we’ve sparked. _I_ am sparked.” The medic closed his optics and opened his chassis plates, showing the Prime the proof.

Optimus stared at Ratchet. A bond. It was permanent, until one or both sparks guttered out. And a sparkling of their own…

There was no way the Prime would get his medic back. Even if he went completely against his morals and conscience and sent Ironhide away on a long mission he would never get Ratchet back. The sparkling would never know their Sire, would have to put up with a Carrier that couldn’t look its way, would be stuck with big sister that hated it if her recent change of mood was anything to go by.

“It was a mistake to come here.” The Prime turned away from the medic and stepped out of the medical bay, ignoring Ratchet’s commands to get his aft back in the med bay so he could run a full exam on the Autobot Commander and on the sparkling.

Like he’d done so those months ago, he took on his vehicle mode and sped out of the base, leaving Ratchet and the Autobots and his little femmeling behind, disappearing into the coming night.

Never before had he wanted so much for Primus to extinguish his spark. Not even Ratchet’s words of animosity towards Andromeda had given him so much grief.

As soon as he cleared the immediate vicinity of Autobot Outpost Omega One and had shut off his communication link which started flooding with insistent pings, the Prime picked up speed on the road so he couldn’t even hear his own cries of grief.

.-.-.

Andromeda stirred in recharge, yawning and rubbing her optic covers with her servos. Bumblebee braced himself for the little femme to begin another bout of defiance and tantrums, and was surprised when she looked up at him with wide blue optics, smiling at him and chirping. He tilted his helm at her, arching an optic ridge in bemusement, and chirred at her. The little sparkling reached up for him, opening and closing her servos and babbling in sparkling-speak.

“Bumblebee?”

The yellow scout looked up and met Arcee’s confused optics. The blue femme entered the rec room and knelt down, holding her servo out to Andromeda and bracing for a fiery outburst. None came, Andromeda only smiling at her fellow femme and sitting up to pat her servo.

“Did you do something?”

BEEP! Bumblebee widened his optics and shook his helm, beeping to tell the femme that he had done nothing to Andromeda to revert her back to her cutesy stage.

“Hmm, that’s odd…”

“ARCEE?! BULKHEAD?! IS ANYONE HERE?!” came a familiar voice, shouting frantically through the halls. Both Cybertronians looked at each other before Bumblebee picked up Andromeda, both stepping out of the room to be confronted by an agitated Ratchet.

“Optimus ran out of the base, and he won’t answer my communication pings,” the medic said hurriedly, optics wide in fright. “See if he’ll answer either of you.”

Arcee was the first to try, and she only received a burst of static. Bumblebee did the same, and received what the older femme had. Andromeda bit down on the yellow scout’s digit and cooed adorably before she tensed up and fixed a curious stare on the medic before them. She chirped loudly, pointing at Ratchet. Or more specifically, Ratchet’s midsection.

The medic, noticing the sparkling’s actions, widened his optics and backed up slightly. _Damn sparklings and their ability to sense other sparklings,_ he told himself. Luckily, neither Arcee or Bumblebee noticed anything.

“We’re getting nothing,” Arcee told the medic after a full minute of trying, which Bumblebee backed up with a loud BEEP.

“I’ll contact Ironhide and tell him to keep an optic out.”

What he didn’t add was that Optimus could be in danger if the events of last time were to be repeated.

.-.-.

He pushed aside a large bush as he gently made his way up the side of wide mesa, one he’d discovered on patrol a few weeks after Andromeda’s birth. He brought her here a few times to get a good look at the stars and at meteor showers. That seemed a lifetime ago, carrier and child enjoying themselves. Andromeda looking up at the falling stars and giggling happily, wings batting back and forth and fanning her carrier. Optimus picking up the little femme and kissing her on her helm and cheekplates, telling her that she was the most precious thing in the universe and that he would always love her.

Now here he was. Andromeda hated him. He’d lost Ratchet forever, adding him up there with Megatron. And to top it off he was carrying Ratchet’s sparkling.

Optimus reached the flat top and collapsed onto the surface on his front, rolling over to his back and staring up at the stars that were just beginning to peek out from the fabric of navy blue. He tried to find the star that was Cybertron’s long-dark sun, but gave up a few minutes into his viewing. There was far too much on his processor.

Ratchet. Also carrying.

That meant in less than three months Andromeda would be joined by two sparklings, upping the count to three sparklings. And one of them would be her own sibling, her own brother or sister. She would be far from happy. She was used to being the only sparkling, having everyone doting on her.

Putting a servo over his midsection, the Prime closed his optics and sighed.

He couldn’t do this. He was NOT going to do this. Yes, he had the exact same thoughts running through his processor when he was pregnant with Andromeda, but this was a different situation entirely. The Sire was an Autobot this time, one that he could not reign in. One that would be around him every day, that he could not and would not be able to get to recognize that he had carried his sparkling. Ratchet had his own and Ironhide’s sparklings to worry about now.

At least with Andromeda the identity hadn’t been known until mere hours before her emergence. And even if he had known beforehand, he would have kept her. Not just because she was already here and he couldn’t imagine his life before her, but also because he didn’t have to cooperate and lay optics on Megatron every solar cycle.

…he’d loved her the moment he discovered she was there.

Not this one.

Never this one.

The Prime opened his optics, and was startled to see that the sky had become almost black, and that he couldn’t count all the stars on his digits. The constellation of Orion hovered over him, the hunter mighty and showing his prowess before the scorpion came and chased him over the horizon to his death.

“Primus, please forgive me,” he whispered to the sky. “I am not going to do this.”

.-.-.

Megatron was startled awake in his quarters by a presence. He jerked and sat up on the metal slab that served as his berth, sword drawn, and nearly sighed in relief when he noticed it was only the Decepticon security officer.

“What is it Soundwave?.”

The mech tilted his helm, and showed the Decepticon warlord a map on his visor. A blue dot was shown in the top right corner, Cybertronian script spelling the name of his nemesis and carrier of his child. Megatron studied the visor of the one bot he trusted on this ship, and a smirk appeared on his faceplates as he said, “Assemble the flyers and groundbridge us there. Optimus Prime won’t know what hit him. When he refuses to give up our sparkling, I’ll crush his spark.”

.-.-.

“I’ve pinpointed Optimus’s location,” Ratchet announced to Andromeda, Arcee, and Bumblebee. The Prime sparkling perked up at the mention of her carrier’s name and warbled.

“Are you going to groundbridge us there?”

“No. I’m going to send his coordinates to Bulkhead and Ironhide… I will request that Ironhide stay back.”

“What for?” Arcee asked, arching an optic ridge. She crossed her arms over her chassis and scoffed.

“Safety reasons, that’s why,” Ratchet snapped before he could help himself. He widened his optics when he realized what he’d done, and quickly said, “I’m sorry, Arcee, but I can’t allow Ironhide to get into a situation that could get him killed.”

“And what about Bulkhead? He’s dispensable just because he’s not your bondmate? Bulkhead’s my consort, you know.”

Ratchet thinned his lipplates and turned back to the monitors. He sighed. “I’m sorry. I… I cannot take any more stress in my condition.”

“What condition?”

Great. It’d be better to tell them sooner rather than later. After the ambulance sent Optimus’s location to the two mechs the medic turned to the motorbike and the muscle car. He glared at them, saying, “I will reformat the both of you into trash cans if you say anything about this. I will be the one to say this on my own terms, not you both. I am carrying.”

Andromeda chirred and flapped her Seeker wings as Bumblebee and Arcee shared a glance.

“And that is only half of it.”

“What’s the other half?”

“…Optimus is carrying as well.”

“Again?!” Arcee nearly shrieked. Bumblebee’s optics widened and he let out a loud BEEEEP!

“But he’s always been around base. Whose sparkling is it?”

Ratchet said nothing, his optics no longer glaring but looking guilty like the rest of his face. He looked down at his pedes and sighed. A few moments later it clicked in Arcee’s processor. Her optics went wide and she whispered, “It’s you, isn’t it? That night before they all showed up, when you and Optimus were in the medbay-”

“I did much more than repair his wound.”

“So we’ve got two new sparklings on the way, one of them sired by you and one that you’re carrying. Does Ironhide know?”

“I’d really rather he not find out.”

“But he’ll find out anyway when it’s born.”

“I know, Arcee…I know.”

Andromeda only chirped and buried her faceplate in Keet’s mane, closing her optics as she slipped into recharge.


	9. Lethal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is **attempted rape (forced spark merge)** and **feticide** in this chapter.

::Ironhide, where are you at?::

The medic heard the weapons specialist growl over their bond, followed by _::Wha’ do ya think Ratch? ‘M goin’ wi’h the others ta help ou’ Prime::_

_::Are you daft, mech?! I’m sparked! Carrying! If I lose you I will lose the sparkling! Get your aft back to base before I open up a groundbridge and force you back here!::_

_::Ya didn’ seem so worried when I wen’ ou’ ta patrol::_

_::That’s a different argument altogether, Ironhide! Patrol is only cruising around and watching for Decepticon activity. I did NOT allow you go on patrol thinking that it would turn into a potential chase scenario!::_

_::Well, ya though’ wrong. I’ll be fine::_

Ratchet heard and felt the burly red Wrecker clamp down on their bond, rendering him unable to get through to the stubborn mech. The medic groaned and cradled his helm in his servos, whispering, “Please Primus, don’t let Optimus say anything. Ironhide will never forgive me, and I’ll never be able to forgive myself for this mess.”

.-.-.

He’d never noticed that he’d fallen into recharge.

One moment he was staring at the stars and the Earth’s moon, processor blanking out as he convinced himself over and over again that getting rid of the sparkling would be the best thing to do to save it from a life of neglect by its Sire and a life of loathing by its own half-sister, and the next moment he was waking up to the stars having moved position and the sounds of flyers closing in on him.

_Not again._

The Prime jumped to his pedes and raced his way down the side of the mesa, survival fight-or-flight instincts kicking into overdrive. Flight was his only option right now, to get safely back to base. If he fought there was a chance that he would not make it back to base at all.

Another cramp raced across his abdomen, and he cried out in pain, pressing a servo to the area to dull it. He slid down the slope of the plateau, uprooting a few desert plants and shrubs along the way and scratching him all to the Pit.

Just as he was about to transform into his truck mode, something hit him in his side and knocked him to the ground. HARD.

The Prime sprawled on his back strut in the shadow of the landform and looked up into the sickening violet optics of his adversary and former lover. Gleaming white dentals bared themselves in a wicked grin, and like the last time he had seen it he wanted to punch him right in the mouth. Which he tried to, springing up and yelling as he took a swing to the Decepticon warlord’s faceplates. Megatron easily brought up a clawed servo and blocked the hit, twisting the Prime’s arm and swinging him back to the ground.

“Still as feisty as before, aren’t you Optimus? And how is our little one, may I ask?”

“You may not,” the Prime hissed, his other servo putting pressure on his abused arm to dull the pain. He’d switched from “flight” to “fight” mode, and charged the Decepticon warlord again. Megatron chuckled and easily blocked the Prime’s second hit, throwing the Autobot Commander to the ground. Optimus cried out from both the impact of his body hitting the ground, and in shock when two Decepticon flyers overcame him and pinned him to the ground. One drew something glowing blue from his subspace that the Prime couldn’t decipher what it was, until it was slapped on his wrists and he found himself unable to part his arms.

Stasis cuffs.

“You know, dear Optimus, I was originally going to demand that you fork over our precious little femmeling to the Decepticon cause lest I rip your spark out. But now that I think of it,” the Decepticon warlord waved the Eradicons away, and Optimus heard them take flight, “I already know what your answer would be. ‘Take my spark, I will never let you have my daughter.’ Hah.” The mech knelt between the Prime’s spread legs, and it became apparent quickly what the silver mech had in mind. Megatron chuckled and grabbed the Prime’s legs as he began kicking to ward him off. “I will take your spark, yes, but not in the way you wish. I don’t have to have you speak to tell me where our daughter is. I’ll just have to figure it out myself.”

The Prime opened his mouth to scream at the twisted warlord, but found that he couldn’t so much as whisper. The cuffs had disabled his vocalizer. He lifted his helm and saw the Decepticon warlord reach for his chassis, felt a claw trace down the middle seam where they parted. Optimus struggled against the bounds that held him and tried to kick the gladiator off of him. Megatron hissed and dug his claws into the seam where the Prime’s chassis split, trying to force them open.

When he succeeded, he was treated to the sight of the pure and virtuous Prime’s blue spark encased in white.

The gladiator stalled, his expression unreadable. His optics darkened. Optimus tried to call for help over the communications link only to find that the cuffs had taken his ability to call for backup. The Prime then began squirming and trying to wrestle himself from Megatron’s grip.

“Who?”

Optimus went still, glaring up at Megatron’s faceplate. The Decepticon warmonger’s faceplates erupted in a flurry of emotions, all aggressive and agitated. How _dare_ someone place their mark on what was rightfully _his?!_. He grabbed Optimus Prime by the windows and brought the Autobot Commander up roughly to look him in the optics, screaming, “WHO?!”

Sliding his faceplate into place and willing himself to fight, Optimus kneed the Decepticon warlord hard in the midsection, managing to get the silver mech off his body. Megatron tried to fire his fusion cannon at the red and blue mech, but Optimus leapt to his pedes and managed to hit him with his bound servos, sending the silver and violet mech flying a good distance away from him. Taking advantage of the time he’d bought Optimus slammed the cuffs against hard rocks, trying to break them, before bringing his knee joint up and slamming it through the metal piece that bound the two cuffs together, shattering it. He gasped as he felt his ability to speak return.

“It is none of your business, Megatron,” the Prime snarled. “You are not laying your servos on my daughter. Not today.” He closed his chassis plates and managed to change his arms into swords, breaking off what remained of the cuffs. “Not ever.”

“OPTIMUS!”

What were they doing? This wasn’t on their normal route.

Megatron charged at him, swiping down his sword as if to get Optimus in the neck, a blow the Prime easily dodged. Optimus made to cleave the warlord’s helm off his shoulders, but the gladiator was quick in blocking the attack. The Prime changed his right sword back into an arm and swung, catching the larger mech in the abdomen. Megatron stumbled back a few feet, and Optimus turned to see Ironhide and Bulkhead running to assist. He shouted, “Call for a ground bridge! I will handle-”

“PRIME-”

“BEHIND YOU!” Bulkhead shouted, optics wide as he finished Ironhide’s sentence. A second later the Prime felt a sharp edge plunge through his lower back and exit in his lower midsection.

Time seemed to slow down and stop. His vision tunneled and every sound was muffled, seemed so far away. He felt as if he were floating, weightless.

Stunned, Optimus looked down to see Megatron’s sword protruding from his abdomen. The blade was coated in blue energon and golden fluids that he recognized as gestational in nature. He slowly, carefully, as if afraid to break the blade, lifted a servo up and curled his digits around the blade.

His pain receptors finally caught up with his processor, snapping him out of his trance. Optimus gasped and choked as he felt the blade retract, heard Megatron take flight. The Prime stumbled backward with the retracting motion of the blade before falling to the ground, his optics staring blankly at the stars as he felt his lifeforce draining from him. Dimly aware of shots being fired and someone cradling his helm, he used up what was left of his rapidly depleting strength to shift his fading gaze to whoever was holding him.

His last sight before everything went black was that of a red and black form hovering over him.

.-.-.

“C’mon Prime, stay wi’ me!”

Optimus’s optics were shut, energon and golden liquid flowing forth from the lethal wound in his midsection. His dark servos shook violently, and his chassis heaved as his sensors screamed in pain.

Ironhide heard Bulkhead finish shooting at Megatron’s retreating form and shout into a communications link for Ratchet to open a groundbridge at their location. Just as a glowing green rip in space and time opened the Prime’s unconscious body went into convulsions, and liquid spurt forth from the wound in his midsection.

Both mechs hauled the Prime’s frame through the ground bridge. Ratchet and the others were in a frenzy. Bumblebee and Arcee were quick to shield Andromeda from the sight of seeing her carrier so badly wounded and close to death. The sparkling whined and waved her servos at them, trying to get them out of her sight to see what was causing all the ruckus. She couldn’t get to her carrier over the bond. The last time that happened something funny happened in him, something she didn’t like.

“Bring him over to the medbay, now!” the medic cried. Bumblebee handed Andromeda to Arcee and ran over to the two mechs that were carrying Optimus’s unconscious frame, beeping for Ironhide to let him help. It left Arcee and Ironhide alone, Andromeda whining softly.

“He was carryin’,” Ironhide declared after a short silence. The medical bay was soundproof, so there was no way to tell what was occurring. Everyone else refused to answer their communication links, and he couldn’t get Ratchet to open up his side of the bond to allow him a glimpse of what was happening.

Arcee nodded her helm, looking down at Andromeda in her arms. The bitlet stared down the hallway, where everyone else had run into. She sighed and fessed up. “Ratchet said so.”

The Wrecker thinned his lipplates and looked down the hallway where the others had disappeared. He knew instantly. He gave a soft, bitter laugh and sighed. “How could ya do this ta me, Ratch’?” Ironhide whispered in a low tone.


	10. Gone

Knockout left the Decepticon leader to his own ramblings, something about how no one would take his Orion and get away with it. Something about a sparkling.

At the moment he couldn’t be bothered to care when he felt Breakdown’s pain along their bond.

The Decepticon medic keyed the code to gain access to his and his mate’s quarters, walking in and finding the blue mech curled on the floor, looking emptily at a spot on the wall. “You’re hurting, Breakdown.”

“Little bit won’t stop kicking me.”

“Wait…they can kick now?”

Breakdown closed his good optic and nodded. Knockout scrambled none-to-gracefully to his bondmate’s side and placed a servo on the larger mech’s abdomen. He couldn’t help the small grin that crossed over his faceplates when he felt the sparkling press its foot against the walls of the gestation chamber.

“It’s cute for you, it hurts for me.”

“You should get used to it, Breakdown.” The medic patted the flat midsection as he simultaneously ran a scan on the blue mech. The results popped up in his visual field, and he blinked them away, retracting his servo from his mate. “The gestation chamber is big enough for the sparkling. It is nowhere near expanding and making your condition obvious. You’ll be fine.”

The larger mech didn’t say anything, only wincing as the sparkling kicked him again.

“Now, now,” Knockout leaned down, gingerly placing his servo on the warm abdominal surface again and speaking to it. “Be good to your carrier, little spark. He’s going through a lot right now to keep you here with us.”

The only response was another kick. Even Breakdown couldn’t help grinning at that, even if it did hurt.

.-.-.

He shooed everyone out of the medical bay after he’d managed to stabilize Optimus, but the Prime was still unconscious.

The damage to his front and his back had been easily repaired, easy to weld the metalflesh back together.

The Prime’s gestation chamber, however, was a different story.

Megatron had twisted the sword within him, and Ratchet believed he was safe in assuming that when the Decepticon warlord had retracted his blade he’d torn off now lost pieces of the chamber, and rendered it beyond feasible repair. He’d had no choice but to cut the tubing and wires that connected the gestation chamber and spark chamber, and to remove the shredded remains of it. Optimus would never again bear a sparkling.

Not that it would likely be an issue for the Prime, he guessed. Ratchet tossed the remnants of the gestation chamber into a waste receptacle and looked upon Optimus’s faceplates. The Prime’s optics were flickering back and forth underneath the covers, and he looked haunted, disturbed. He couldn’t bother much with that, his first priority making sure that their leader wasn’t harmed physically.

The medic put away his tools, and simply stood in the middle of the room. The noises of the machines keeping Optimus Prime alive and tabs on his vitals screamed at him. Ratchet turned and fixed his optics upon the frame of the Autobot leader before looking at the table next to the berth.

There was considerable weight to the gestation chamber when he’d removed it. He’d laid it on the table as he fixed up the Prime, but he knew what it held that gave it its weight. When he had finished tending to Optimus he’d removed the frame from within. Ratchet stepped over to the table again and ran a digit over the deceased sparkling’s faceplates.

Without having seen the spark color to determine the gender quickly, the medic had run a test to determine the gender. The test had shown that the sparkling was a femme, mostly white in color, thick and short like him, and with Optimus’s blue as a secondary scheme. He saw the beginnings of a chevron on the helm. The tiny servos matched Optimus and Andromeda’s…

Ratchet sat on the floor of the medical bay and held his helm in his servos.

.-.-.

It was half-past midnight when the red mech finally decided that he’d had enough of driving, and he took on his bipedal mode. Ironhide stepped over to a land formation and hid himself within the shadows, staring at the vast emptiness of the Nevada desert. He honestly didn’t know what to feel. Should he feel betrayed? Angry? Upset? Saddened?

He wasn’t sure. This uncertainty was overwhelming. Ironhide sighed and dropped his helm to look at his pedes as the insistent tugs on the sparkbond entered their second minute. He decided enough was enough, and reopened the bond, but he said nothing, staying silent.

It was quiet on the bond for a few moments before Ratchet’s voice broke through _::Ironhide, are you there?::_

The medic sounded saddened. Ironhide got a glimpse of a dark room, and knew that the ambulance had holed himself up in their quarters. The Wrecker thinned his lipplates and looked back up at the desert as he answered _::Won’ be for long’r unless ya get on wi’ it::_

_::Ironhide… I’m so sorry, Ironhide::_

_::Ratch’, ‘m not mad ‘bout the sparklin’ or Prime::_

_::Oh?::_

Ironhide closed his optics and gave a rueful laugh. _::’m more upset ‘bout the fact that ya didn’t tell me anythin’. Wasn’ expectin’ ya to wait all this time for meh::_

_::I thought you would have been upset thinking of Optimus and I…::_

_::Even if I got mad I can’ do anythin’ ‘bout stuff like that that’s already passed::_

_::Can you forgive me? Ironhide, can you forgive me? Please…I’ve already got Optimus mad at me, I can’t have you turn against me too::_

_::I forgive ya Ratch’. But ‘m still upset at ya…now I jus’ got a question for ya…him or me?::_

_::W-what?::_

_::Cyb’rtron’ns bond in twos, not threes an’ more. If ya choose him I’ll jus’ keep my end o’ the bond closed forever. I jus’ need to know, Ratch. Him or me?::_

The minute of silence that followed was deafening and seemed to last far longer than all the thousands of stellar cycles he’d spent alone in space. The Wrecker sat down in the shadow of the land form and stretched his legs in front of him.

_::I don’t know::_

Ironhide felt his spark twist into itself and shatter into multiple pieces. He refused to let himself break down and cry. He would be weak if he did so. It took all of his willpower to steady his voice as he replied _::Well, when ya decide Ratch’, let meh know::_ and clamped the bond shut before the medic could get a word in edgewise. He thought maybe their sparkbond, the fact that Ratchet was carrying their sparkling, would be easy to influence Ratchet’s decision.

But he had thought wrong.

.-.-.

Ratchet thought about burying the little one, but decided against it in case Optimus wanted to see it.

The medic traced his silver digit over the tiny frame of the sparkling. His sparkling. His and Optimus’s sparkling.

After millennia of fragging and sparkmerges hadn’t produced anything, they just needed their one-night-stand eight months after Andromeda’s birth to give her a little sister.

One she wouldn’t know. And that they would never know.

The humans loved to cling to the theory that any young that died while still inside their mother would meet them at the entrance to their own Well of AllSparks. They’d see the infant as they would have appeared, had they survived.

It wasn’t so for Cybertronians.

Sparklings that perished before birth, before their official presentation ceremony before an altar of Primus were sent to a middle dimension where neither Primus or Unicron accepted them. Fully grown mechs and femmes that never had their official ceremony went to this place as well. It was another reason why Optimus was so dead set on getting back to and reviving their home planet. The vast records of those that had their ceremony contained his name, but not Andromeda’s. If he lost his daughter before he could officially present her before their god and the founding father of the Prime lineage they would never be reunited in the afterlife.

Ratchet pushed those thoughts aside and tried to believe that some bonded couple in the middle was currently caretaking for their infant’s spark. He sighed loudly and allowed tears to fall from his optics. He wanted to cradle the little frame against his chassis, soothe its fears and worries, but it had none.

She was gone and he would never know his daughter. He turned his back to Optimus and the deactivated frame of the sparkling and sobbed quietly into his hands.

In the meanwhile the Prime fully opened his optics. He decided to not let the medic know he was awake. Optimus discretely shifted his gaze to his side, at the table next to his berth. He saw the little frame with a long gash in its body, crossing diagonally from one shoulder to the opposite hip. White. Blue. A tiny chevron forming on the helm, and tiny servos that matched his in color and make. He closed his optics again and let out a low, mournful sigh that was swallowed by the noises of the machines and by the soft sobs of the medic.


	11. Femme

Night was slowly becoming day before his optics.

Ironhide still stared at the brightening sky above, not minding the eight-legged Earth creature that played happily on his pede. It skittered around, and it tickled a little. The Wrecker had let out a few un-Wrecker-like laughs before shooing it to a less sensitive area on his legs.

So here he was. Alone.

What if Ratchet didn’t want to take him back? What if the medic decided to stay with Optimus? What would become of him? What would become of the sparkling that Ratchet carried?

He closed his optics and entertained the thought of leaving.

.-.-.

Optimus decided that enough playacting was enough. He kept his optics closed and twitched his arms, moaning in pain.

He felt Ratchet’s presence, which had been somewhere on the other side of the medical bay, sprint closer to him. The ambulance was in full medic mode, taking his vitals and snapping his digits near Optimus’s finials, asking in a faraway tone, “Optimus, can you hear me?”

“Uhhhh…ehhh.”

The medic snapped his digits again and the Prime flinched. He opened his optics and squinted them against the harsh light shining from above that was Ratchet beaming a flashlight to his optics.  The medic moved the light and the Prime’s optics flickered over to keep up with the movement.

“Audio and visual functions normal.”

Something hit his knee joint, hard, and the Prime kicked as he let out a low yelp.

“Motor functions and reactions optimal.”

“I am fine, Ratchet.”

“Oh sure.” The medic tossed his tool onto a table nearby the berth, and glared at the Prime. “Except for the fact that you ran off from the base while you were with child, were attacked and had a blade shoved through your body, and lost said child, you’re just peachy. You’re just-” Ratchet threw a wrench across the room and Optimus flinched at the sound the metal thing made when it made contact with the rocky wall “-perfectly fine.”

The Prime tried to sit up on the berth, but he was roughly shoved back by the medic. This felt so familiar and ugly. His instincts kicked in and he quickly sat up and drew his weapons, pointing them at the medic while his chassis heaved and optics daring the medic to lay his servos on him again.

“Optimus-” Ratchet had his servos held up in a surrendering gesture, optics pleading, but it was his turn to flinch as the Prime growled, “Do NOT touch me again, Ratchet.”

“Optimus,” the medic replied. “Please. You’re not fully recovered. You sustained a lot of damage.”

“I know that perfectly well. I felt it.”

Silence fell on the medical bay. Tense. Thick. Both mechs staring at each other. One pair of optics hostile, the other pleading. It felt so familiar. So ugly and so familiar.

“You’re not even going to ask about the sparkling?” Ratchet mumbled in a tone so low that Optimus had to blink and reply, “I beg your pardon?”

“The sparkling. _Our_ sparkling, Optimus. You’re not even going to ask about the sparkling?”

The Prime put down his weapons and reconfigured them back into his arms. He looked away from the medic and sighed.

“What would you have done, Optimus?”

“You and I would have terminated it.”

“Optimus,” Ratchet rose his voice in indignation. “You’d be asking me to _kill_ my own child! You can’t ask someone do that-”

“It was my child too, Ratchet. I was the one carrying it. I was the one purging every waking moment these past four weeks! I would have been the one to carry it through and go through that Pit of an emergence cycle again, and for what?”

“What if I wanted the sparkling?!”

“I DIDN’T!” Optimus roared. Even he seemed taken aback by how loud his own voice had gotten. He closed his optics, shook his helm, and said in a softer tone, “I didn’t want this sparkling, Ratchet. This isn’t Cybertron. There are no orphanages around where I could have left him or her to-”

“Her,” Ratchet said in a low voice. “It was a femme.”

Optimus found himself taken aback by such a small detail. A femme. Another femme. Andromeda would have had a little sister.

Optimus blinked back the hot tears forming in his optics and looked away from the other mech. “There is no place to leave an unwanted sparkling on this planet. I have enough to deal with. Leading the Autobots. Ensuring that none of us lose our sparks. Making sure that I can end this war and/or get back to Cybertron and revive our home planet so I may present Andromeda before Primus and ensure her a place in the Well.” Thinking of the little femme, the Prime closed his optics to hold back the tears that threatened to fall. “What did I do to gain my daughter’s animosity?”

“Sparklings can sense other sparklings. They react rather adversely when said sparkling is their own sibling. But,” the medic turned his back to the Prime and faced the wall, “it’s safe to say that she will be back to her normal self, and that you will never have to deal with anything like this again. You won’t be able to conceive and bear sparklings anymore.” When he saw the slightly confounded look the bigger mech gave him the medic continued, “Your gestation chamber was damaged beyond repair. Bits of it were missing and no doubt ripped from your internals. You’re infertile.”

The Prime felt a huge load lifted from his shoulders. He looked over at the small table where the body of the sparkling lay. So tiny. He reached over and gently picked up the sparkling… the femmeling in his servos. She fit so perfectly in them.

A tear fell from his optic and plunked on a tiny servo. Even though the sparkling was only half-way through her development he knew she would have grown to be a beautiful femme.

Much as he had almost a year ago when he birthed his first and only living child he cradled the small form to his chassis and planted a soft kiss to the top of her helm. “May you find peace and acceptance wherever you may be, little one.”

A silver servo closed over his own. Optimus looked up and into the saddened optics of the medic. Ratchet placed his other servo on the back of the Prime’s helm and brought him up, giving the mech a kiss to his forehelm crest.

“I’m sorry, Optimus. I’m so, so sorry.”

.-.-.

“So, Optimus was pregnant again?” Miko asked of Bulkhead and Arcee as she tossed a ball at the railing. The girl had been the one to take the news lightly. Jack and Raf had twitched and shuddered at the thought of the Autobot Commander carrying another sparkling, and losing this one.

“Yup. It was another femme, and it was Ratchet’s this time,” Arcee responded from her sitting position on the floor where she was watching over Andromeda.

“Hah! I didn’t think the old docbot could get it up.”

“Miko!” Bulkhead cried out in embarrassment, turning from the monitors he was watching and giving the exchange student a shocked look.

“What? It’s true. So what else happened? He lost it, right?”

“Apparently Megatron came in and stabbed Optimus with his sword. He got the sparkling and… and he killed her.”

“That dirty ‘con! Andromeda would have had a little sister and it would have been so cute!”

“Actually, not really.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Arcee sighed in exasperation before remembering that Cybertronians and humans did have their differences after all. “Because sparklings this small react really badly to siblings. If Optimus carried and gave birth to the sparkling-”

“You know we’re still here, right?!”

“I’m gonna puke.”

“Shut up you two, you’re like a bunch of girls,” Miko called as the motorbike continued, “he’d have to keep Andromeda and her sister away from each other. Sibling rivalry would be an understatement. Having sparklings in quick succession has a bad effect on their psyche because a pair of carriers has enough trouble splitting their time between two sparklings around the same age. It’s virtually impossible for a single creator like Optimus to try and split his attention and time among more than one sparkling. Not to mention he’s already stressed out enough trying to end this war and make sure none of us die.”

“Well at least he’ll get to meet up with the sparkling when he dies, right?”

Arcee arched an optic ridge. “‘Meet up?’ What do you mean?”

“If a mom loses her baby before it’s born,” Raf replied this time, “a lot of us believe that someday they’ll meet that baby in heaven, or whatever paradise you might call it.” The prepubescent boy turned his attention back to his computer and continued, “My mom always tells me that we’ll meet my twin sister when we die. She died a day after we were born.”

“Not so with us,” Bulkhead answered. “Once a sparkling’s born you have to take it to a temple of Primus and present the sparkling to him. Say a prayer, a chant, name the sparkling, and it secures the sparkling a place in the Well if they live a good lifecycle, or a place in the Pit if they’re not so good in their lifecycle.”

“What happens with this sparkling, then?” Jack inquired, leaning over the railing and exchanging a glance with Miko. “No meet up for Optimus and Andromeda and sparkling?”

“That we’re not really so sure of, Jack,” Arcee fielded the question, grabbing a tired Andromeda from her laying position on the floor and holding her in her arms, gently rubbing the femmeling’s backstrut as she yawned. “We believe, but again we’re not sure, that there’s a sort of a middle ground where those that never got their presentation ceremony before Primus before they offlined go to. If it does exist, I’m guessing that’s where the sparkling went…”

“Buh,” Andromeda muttered tiredly. Everyone looked at her and saw that her optics were closed as she fell into recharge. Her optic covers twitched and she curled into a ball, wings flickering. At least they weren’t arched in agitation.

.-.-.

Optimus had fallen back into a much-needed recharge with the little frame of the femme against his chassis. Ratchet knew it was time to let her go. The medic gently grabbed the sparkling and touched the Prime’s shoulder, whispering, “Optimus?”

The Prime’s optics shifted under their covers and they flickered open softly, his tired blue optics fixing on the medic’s frame. Ratchet gestured to the little frame in his servos. His gaze flickered down and his gaze softened. The semi lifted a servo and caressed the tiny form, his own goodbye to the daughter he wouldn’t know.

He waited for the Prime’s optics to shut again, for the Autobot Commander’s inhalation rate to level out before he stepped out of the confines of the base.

The sun was setting on yet another day. Time passed so fast on this planet. Then again, it wasn’t surprising, given that the humans on this rock had such short lifespans. He knelt down and shifted the packed desert sand with his servos. Ten minutes later he’d made a hole in the Earth’s outer crust deep enough. Ratchet finally allowed the tears to fall from his optics, wetting the desert sand, and he choked as he gently lay the little frame in the shallow grave.

“I’m sorry. Please forgive me, little one.”

He reached into his subspace and pulled out a small metal trinket he’d fashioned. A tiny circular medallion with the Cybertronian symbol for her designation engraved on both sides. The medic looked upon it for a few moments, realizing it would be the last time he’d see it, and gently placed it on the femme’s chassis.

“I hope you find acceptance and happiness that you would not have had otherwise in this life. I hope we are wrong about that middle ground,” Ratchet traced a digit along the femme’s underformed chevron. “I hope that one day I may meet you.”

The wind picked up as the sun set on the horizon. Ratchet finished filling the pit with sand and patted it down. The wind masked his sobs of grief.

.-.-.

Ironhide counted himself lucky that he’d managed to hole himself up in a small cave far away from where humans trekked. No one had asked him anything; he believed he was safe in assuming that they knew. After all, the base was small. News tended to travel fast in tiny spaces.

_::Ironhide?::_

He didn’t remember ever having fallen asleep, but apparently he had. He opened his optics and flickered his gaze to the mouth of the cave, seeing that it was nighttime. He’d been away from the base for a full day.

_::Ironhide? Please…answer me::_

_::’m listenin’ Ratch::_

_::You, Ironhide. I can’t be with Optimus. I can’t be with him. It’s always been you, Ironhide::_

The Wrecker got to his pedes and walked outside of his hiding place.

_::Please, Ironhide. Forgive me and come back. I need you::_

_::An’ I need ya Ratch…but don’ think things’ll be the same b’tween us::_


	12. Twins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the shortest chapter of the bunch.

He stood at the entrance to the base from the driveway, waiting for his sparkmate to show himself. The medic had ordered that the kids be taken home, and shooed everyone else to their own quarters. He did not want them around when he and Ironhide met up again.

The unmistakable sound of the doors to the base sliding aside echoed in the room. With each passing millisecond the sounds of tires on cement grew closer and louder, and with it his anxiety and nervousness shot through the roof of the base. Ratchet had half a processor to shoot back towards his quarters and hide. But that would just complicate and mess everything up further. And Primus knew that he had messed up their lives enough.

The red truck came to rest just inside the base, idling for a few moments before it took on the familiar form of his sparkmate. Both mechs stared at each other, the tension in the room thick. Ratchet had exhausted all his apologies and tear supply. All he could do was look listlessly at the other mech and whisper, “I was worried that the Decepticons might find you.”

Ironhide didn’t respond. His optics, which had previously held the medic’s gaze, only darkened and he thinned his lipplates. “If they woulda foun’ meh I’da scrapped ‘em all.”

Neither mech spoke for a long while. Having had enough of the tension the Autobot medic turned and walked back towards his quarters. Ironhide stood where he was until he heard a low, regretful voice inquire, “Are you coming or not?”

The red mech decided to follow Ratchet. With his sparkling growing inside of the medic, he didn’t have much of a choice, did he?

.-.-.

Optimus woke with an ugly and loud gasp, optics onlining abruptly, chassis heaving. His large frame nearly tumbled off the medical berth. Had he done so he would have taken all the wires that were hooked into his frame and ripped them. Ratchet would have been furious.

He didn’t remember anything of what he had dreamed, but deep inside the core of his spark he knew what it was.

The Prime stared at the ceiling, waiting for his panic to subside. He placed his servos over his optics and exhaled a shaky sigh. He jolted when the doors that connected the medical bay to Ratchet’s quarters slid open, and previously-dimmed lights switched to their brightest setting. Optimus heard the medic’s voice say, “Your vitals are level, Optimus. Once I remove these wires you’re free to go.”

The semi tensed up as the ambulance plucked the sensors and wires fixed over his helm, chassis, arms and legs off his frame. He sighed again and closed his optics, repeating over and over in his processor that Ratchet was not Megatron. Megatron was not there at the base, and couldn’t do him any more harm.

Still, when Ratchet had completed his task of freeing the Prime from all those medical instruments, Optimus nearly tripped over his own pedes as he scrambled out of the door and back into the hallway of the base.

It had been far too long by his standards since he’d seen the interior of the Autobot base. He was confused momentarily, wondering which end led to the quarters of the medic and which end led to the main room. Stilling and listening closely to the noises around him, he found he could only hear the sounds of the base, such as the air conditioners running and the monitors tracking for any strange activity. The Prime, exhausted, decided to head for his quarters, hoping that Andromeda would be there.

Sure enough, she was. And so were Bumblebee, Bulkhead, and Arcee. The three other Cybertronians were deep in recharge against one of the walls, Arcee mumbling in her sleep, Bulkhead’s intakes hitching every few moments, and Bumblebee chirring softly. The Prime couldn’t help but grin. He then walked over to the crib and peeked inside, his grin slacking when he lay optics on the recharging form of Andromeda.

Hoping and praying that she wouldn’t react negatively, the Prime gently picked her up in his servos and cradled her to his chassis with one arm, reaching for Keet and her starry blanket with the other before heading over to his own unoccupied berth. He lay himself down on his right side. He placed the stuffed lion under her arm and tucked her blanket around her. Andromeda stirred and yawned. The Prime prayed that she wouldn’t cry, and was relieved when her blue optics shone up brightly at him. The femmeling chirred softly and reached a tiny servo out to her carrier, placing it on his faceplates.

Optimus brought the little one up to his faceplates and kissed her helm crest. Andromeda babbled quietly, mindful of her sleeping guardians, and curled up to him. Her Seeker wings fluttered. He lay down on his berth and whispered, “I will never do this again to you.”

“Mah.”

The Prime held the little femme to his chassis, comforting her with his sparkbeats, for the rest of the night.

.-.-.

The tension hadn’t subsided during the night.

It was evident even now, as Ironhide sat uncomfortably on the medical berth across from the one Ratchet was on. The medic waved a device over his lower midsection, optics narrowed in concentration at the screen the device was connected to.

There wasn’t much the red mech could do. All he could really do at this moment was look down at his pedes. Ironhide struggled within himself, with his emotions. He heard Ratchet’s intakes hitch in surprise, and his voice utter a soft “Oh.”

“‘Oh,” what?”

“It would seem I either missed something very important in the last exam, or the spark split. I’m… I am carrying twins.”

The red mech felt his mouth open in shock and his spark stall as the medic showed him the still frames from the exam. Two brightly shining sparks inside the medic’s gestational chamber, with faint outlines of frames beginning to take form. He was the complete opposite of elated.


	13. Kickstart

Everyone noticed the changes in the behavior of the Prime sparkling. She was no longer withdraw and hostile. No longer Unicron’s spawn. She had reverted back to her normally cheerful sparkling self.

It was a relief to see Optimus cradling her in his arms again.

But no one knew the torture the Prime hid from everyone.

He failed to recharge properly most nights. Megatron was always there, the offlined corpse of the unborn femme at his feet. It escalated a week after he’d stormed out of the base when he dreamed that Megatron had Andromeda in his servos. He woke gasping for air, almost screaming, when he saw the Decepticon warlord plunge a sword through their daughter’s chassis. The little femme’s dying screams still echoed in his audios, even as he walked over to the seekerling’s crib and picked her up, clutching her to his chassis for the rest of the night to reassure himself that it was nothing more than a horrible nightmare.

He couldn’t go to anyone. Before Ironhide, before Andromeda, before all of this he could have gone to Ratchet and laid out his worries and life story for the medic. And he did. Often.

But everything had changed. And he couldn’t do anything about it, except cope.

“Mama?”

It was just him and Andromeda in the main room. It was nighttime, nearing 8pm Jasper-time. Everyone else had already retired to their rooms to recharge. Ratchet had complained of persistent pain in his backstrut, so Ironhide helped the heavily pregnant medic to their quarters. Only six weeks in, and the twin sparklings the medic carried were taking a toll on his frame. His abdomen was distended, and the twins clanged and kicked their carrier almost nonstop. Optimus shuddered to think of it.

Andromeda was enough for him. For forever.

Placing a servo over his midsection and thanking Primus that he no longer had to worry about becoming sparked again, the Prime turned to the femmeling on the floor and smiled at her. ‘Mama’ was a non-existent word on Cybertron, but here, it was a term for a human carrier.

“Carrier, my little one.” He looked over again at the monitors to ensure that he hadn’t missed anything strange, then picked Andromeda up, smiling at her giggles and kissing her cheekplate. “Can you say ‘carrier’?”

“Mama.” She batted at his faceplates with Keet, grinning. “Mama.”

“You are close enough.”

Andromeda squeaked and held her stuffed lion out to her carrier, grinning brightly. Optimus stared at Keet’s beady black eyes for a few moments before readjusting his daughter to sit in one arm against his chassis and gently grabbed Keet with the other servo, holding the stuffed lion in front of Andromeda’s faceplates. The sparkling had a staredown with the plush toy before nuzzling it with her faceplate and chirring affectionately.

He’d missed this. He’d really missed seeing his little femme, his light and his world, so happy.

Optimus adjusted the settings on the monitor so if anything odd came up the alerts would sound quickly through the base, and headed off to his quarters to try and recharge. He hoped that his nightmares wouldn’t return.

Andromeda chirred and curled up to recharge before they’d even reached her carrier’s quarters.

.-.-.

“Knockout, where is Breakdown?”

The Decepticon medic couldn’t help but shake at the Decepticon warlord’s inquiry. Mentally steeling himself, he wiped down the last dirty spot on the medical berth before turning to look Megatron in the optics. “My apologies, Lord Megatron, but Breakdown has been suffering from a horrible sickness caused by bad energon lately.”

“Hmm. I certainly hope that you can cure him of it,” the silver mech told the red medic, fixing a suspicious and critical gaze on him. He turned around and headed for the doors out of the medical bay before he stopped again and continued in a low voice, “We cannot lose a vital member of our team. The drones are easily disposed of; you and Breakdown are not. Fix him quickly.”

Knockout waited until he was sure the Decepticon leader wasn’t listening in at the door before he let out a huge sigh of relief and prodded his bondmate over their sparklink. _::Breakdown, how are you faring?::_

_::Could be better. Think the bitlet kicked a dent in my intakes.::_

_:They kick just like you::_

_::And are active all night like you::_

_::Lord Megatron was here asking about you::_

The Aston Martin felt fear and panic fill the blue van’s side of the link. _:What did you tell him? What did he ask for?::_

_::He only asked where you were, and I told him that you had a sickness from bad energon. I hope that should be enough to keep him off your trail until the sparkling arrives::_

_::Uh…that’ll be sooner than later::_

_::Why?::_

Breakdown clutched at his midsection and hissed at the pain coursing through his frame. _::Looks like the bitlet doesn’t want to wait any longer::_

.-.-.

Things hadn’t improved or degraded concerning his relationship with Ironhide. The red mech had become withdrawn and didn’t speak much. He only recharged, refueled, listened apathetically as Ratchet complained about the twins kicking him, and recharged again. It was lonely.

Ratchet sat up in the berth, looking over some datapads containing the information from the latest scans he’d done to check on the progress of the sparklings and sparing the occasional glance at his bondmate. Ironhide looked troubled in recharge.

“Have you thought of designations, Ironhide?”

“Can’ think of any if I don’ know wha’ they are. Let meh sleep, Ratch. Worry ‘bout names later.”

“Fine, fine. Have a restful recharge.”

The medic grabbed the datapads and waddled out into the main room, finding it empty. Peace and quiet, two of his favorite things in the universe that would soon be shattered by the twins he carried. He sat down nearby the monitors, instinctively looking up to see if there was anything odd on the radar. Thankfully there was no Decepticon activity, and Agent Fowler hadn’t interrupted their quiet like he had two days ago, requesting to speak to Optimus alone.

Before all of this, Optimus would have also requested that Ratchet be there to hear what the human had to say. Now the Prime didn’t even blink twice at the request.

Ratchet closed his optics, sighing, and pinched his nasal ridge. How were they going to do it? How were they going to deal with two more sparklings on the base? Tensions would be high. Andromeda, though she wouldn’t react as horribly as she did when Optimus had been carrying, would be confused by the presence of two new sparklings where she once had reigned supreme.

An atrociously loud beeping blared through the base. Since he was so close to the monitors he jerked and yelped, catching himself before he fell to the floor. He steadied himself and placed a servo over his swollen midsection. Two Decepticon life signals had popped up in Wyoming. Only two.

Arcee and Bulkhead walked in, blinking their optics and fighting against the recharge that wanted them to drop where they stood. “What is that noise, by Primus?” Arcee griped, pressing her servos to her audios.

“Two Decepticon signals have popped up on Earth. Wyoming.”

“Uh, Ratchet,” Bulkhead pointed a digit at the top of the screen where a little icon had popped up. “There’s a message waiting.”

The medic pulled up the waiting text and read it out loud: _“In need of medical attention. Please help.”_

.-.-.

With each passing minute Knockout only worried further that the Autobots either failed to receive the message or decided not to help.

He’d hidden them in a cave near a rushing river. The Decepticons would be virtually unable to track them. He’d also left a locator beacon in their berth aboard the ship. Only he could locate the _Nemesis_ as long as he accessed the correct frequency to send the both of them back.

Breakdown’s frame shook in pain, the blue mech stifling yells with every contraction. All that Knockout could do was continue to drench cloths in the nearby cold river water and place them wherever the mech needed pain relief. He placed a cloth over the other mech’s forehelm. Breakdown moaned and asked, “Do you know if they’ll be coming?”

“I don’t know. I hope not and I hope so, Breaky.”

The mech stared up at the ceiling of the cave with his good yellow optic and sighed. “I now think we should’ve gotten rid of the bitlet,” he nearly whispered.

Knockout would have usually said something along the lines of, “I told you so,” but now was not the time. He only allowed the blue mech to continue in a whisper, “How are we going to live with ourselves, knowin’ that we have a sparkling out there that won’t know us and that we won’t know?”

The red mech only cradled the blue mech’s helm and placed a gentle kiss to his lipplates. A moment later he heard the unmistakable sound of a ground bridge opening and a pair of pedes meeting the river rock. A loud voice broke the near-quiet of the mountains, calling, “Show yourself!”

Breakdown’s optic snapped open and he growled. Knockout gently tapped him on the helm and warned him over the bond to behave.

The Decepticon medic walked out and came faceplate to faceplate with the Autobot medic. Knockout started and stared at the medic’s very engorged abdomen. Blue optics quickly maneuvered over his frame and the mostly-white mech commented, “You don’t look in need of medical assistance.”

“I’m not. But my partner is.” With that Knockout led Ratchet into the cave. A quick scan later and the Autobot ambulance’s mouth dropped open.

“By Primus, how did you two get away with this for so long aboard the Decepticon warship?” Ratchet asked as he made his way over to the laboring mech. His optics had darkened in recognition, but his medic oaths came first before any personal vendettas. He knelt down, hissing and putting a servo to his backplates before he parted the blue mech’s legs and scanned to determine how much longer it would be. Knockout only shrugged and knelt down next to his bondmate’s helm, murmuring, “I don’t even know.”

Suddenly the blue mech jerked and yelled as yet another spasm radiated pain through his frame. Ratchet briefly scanned his readings and announced, “The sparkling’s already making its way into the emergence channel. You may want to sit up or lean against something, Breakdown.”

“Breaky,” Knockout whispered, using the blue mech’s nickname. Clenching and unclenching his servos Breakdown shifted to sit up at an acute angle and began pushing with the spasms. Ratchet gently moved his digits into the laboring mech’s valve and felt for the sparkling’s helm. He felt it and said, “Keep pushing, you’re doing great.”

A loud yell was ripped from Breakdown’s vocals as he felt the bitlet’s helm push against the rim of his valve. Why had he agreed to carry?

Oh, right. He’d promised Knockout he’d carry the next one. He cursed himself for making that promise in the first place.

Knockout kept wiping the cool cloths over his forehelm, murmuring to him soothing words of encouragement as Ratchet gently stretched the valve rim with his digits, easing the sparkling’s transition from the cramped and warm space inside of his or her carrier to the cold, vast world outside. The sparkling’s entire helm exited with the next push.

“Okay, the helm’s out. One more push should do it.”

Breakdown intertwined his digits with those of his smaller bondmate and gathered up the last remnants of his strength that carrying and labor hadn’t torn from him, pushing and feeling the sparkling’s entire body exit through his valve. He let out a mix between a groan and a gasp as the pressure that he’d held in his frame this entire time was relieved from him.

Ratchet drew back, holding the tiny frame in his servos and gently rubbed circles over the sparkling’s intakes, stimulating its systems into coughing up the gestative fluids blocking its air pumps. It worked, and the sparkling practically projectile-vomited the liquid keeping it from venting, and let out cry. The medic ran a digit along the seam in the chassis and chuckled when gold shone out from the sparkling’s little chest. _We’ve had quite the influx of femmes, dear Primus._ “It’s a little femme, you two,” he whispered as he gently handed over the crying and squirming frame to her Sire.

Knockout looked on his daughter in awe, optics wide and shining. “A femme,” he whispered, turning to Breakdown and smiling broadly. “Breaky, we’ve got a daughter. She’s beautiful. She’s beautiful.”

The blue mech looked at his bondmate and newsparked daughter with his yellow optic and reached for her, gently touching her with his digits as Knockout used one of the wet cloths to the clean the femmeling of birth fluids. Carrier and sparkling were still connected by the umbilical line. “She’s perfect,” Breakdown whispered, a tear falling from his good optic.

At the sound of the voice she’d come to know the femmeling stopped her crying and opened her optics. Yellow. Just like Breakdown’s. She blinked them and tried to focus them in the direction of where it had come from. Knockout smiled and felt himself on the verge of tears as he said, “We will always love you, little one.”

“You can’t keep her aboard the _Nemesis_ , can you?” Ratchet’s voice broke through their revere. The medic’s blue optics peered at the duo questioningly. Knockout gently positioned the femmeling in Breakdown’s arms, turning her faceplate to her carrier as he answered, “We can’t. We were going to ask for asylum at your base. We can’t… Megatron cannot lay his servos on her.”

Ratchet thought through the duo’s request. He could not, in all good conscious, allow two seasoned Decepticons onto the Autobot base when there was already a sparkling there, with two more on the way. But his other half told him he couldn’t allow a sparkling to be with her creators when they returned to their normal environment, as it was even less suited for a sparkling than the base. The medic watched as Breakdown planted a gentle kiss to the cooing and whimpering femme’s helm. Such a small gesture shared across factions.

“We cannot offer you asylum.” Ratchet placed a comforting servo on the swell of his belly, making the frantic sparklings within him go still. “But we can take her in.”

Knockout and Breakdown looked each other in the optics, not needing their bond to speak. It was better than nothing.

The Decepticon medic twisted off the femmeling’s umbilicus that still connected her to Breakdown and wrapped her in a sheet he pulled from his subspace. “We’re sorry, little femme,” the red medic whispered to his creation, leaning down to bring his faceplate closer to her and allowing her clawed servos to touch his cheekplates. “We have to do this. To make sure you live.”

Breakdown held her to his chassis, not wanting to let her go. Her yellow optics, full of love and innocence, peered up at him. “Always remember your carrier loves you. Kickstart.”

Kickstart cooed, as if approving her name. Ratchet had to turn away from the scene and blink his optics free of tears. He hoped he never had to go through this. Ever.

Knockout gently took Kickstart, kissing her on her helm, and handed her over to Ratchet. The unspoken words of gratitude hung in the air and followed the Autobot medic as he walked outside of the cave and called back to base for a ground bridge. Kickstart cooed and fell into recharge, blissfully unaware that she may never set optics on her true creators again.

Ratchet could only wonder how the others at the base would react to the newest arrival.

The sparklings within him kicked excitedly. They could sense the little femme in their carrier’s arms; at least they were happy.


	14. Innocent

The Decepticon sparkling was already in recharge when he arrived back at the Autobot base, looking so peaceful and innocent. Yellow optics fluttering under their covers. Tiny mouth occasionally opening in a yawn. Clawed servos opening and closing. Completely innocent, unlike her barbaric Decepticon creators who killed without second thought.

Ratchet shuddered to think that she would grow to become like them. He hoped that nurture would triumph over nature.

Arcee and Bulkhead were still there at the monitors, the green Wrecker in front of the screens, the blue motorbike at the controls to the ground bridge. Ratchet kept his optics upon the little femme’s serene faceplates even as Arcee shut down the bridge and both Cybertronians made their way over.

“Who was it?”

Kickstart suddenly jerked and whimpered in her recharge, reaching out a clawed servo toward the sound of Arcee’s voice, swiping in midair clumsily. Ratchet shushed the sparkling, holding her to his spark with one servo and rubbing his protruding belly with the other as he answered, “It was Knockout and Breakdown.”

Bulkhead clearly bristled at the mention of his nemesis. Arcee pretended to not notice and continued, “What happened?”

“When I arrived, Breakdown was in the throes of emergence. I arrived just in time to help the sparkling out. Luckily, nothing went wrong, but they cannot take this little one back to their ship; Megatron would either kill her, or snatch her and raise her as his own in lieu of Andromeda… frankly, killing her would be the more merciful act.”

“So why is their kid here?” Bulkhead asked tersely, frowning down at the little femme. She looked like a duplicate of her Sire, Knockout. Same angled silver faceplates. Same claws for hands. But the color of her armor was Breakdown’s blue. If he didn’t know any better, he’d have thought it was Knockout turned a sparkling again with a new paint job. But he did know better.

“They were going to ask for asylum, Bulkhead. To keep their daughter safe.” Ratchet looked up and fixed a stern glare at the green mech. “But I told them, while we cannot offer them asylum, we could take her in.”

“So she can grow up and kill us all?”

“Bulkhead, she’s a sparkling!” the medic hissed loudly. The sparkling squirmed and opened her optics, shining yellow, and began whimpering. Bulkhead almost fell at the sight of her yellow optics, just like Breakdown’s. They looked at him, curious. He couldn’t get past the hue of her optics. The Wrecker huffed and turned around, storming off towards his quarters.

“Well, he certainly hates Breakdown enough,” Arcee’s voice broke the silence that had fallen. Ratchet looked back down and saw that the blue motorbike was in front of the femmeling, holding a digit out to her and smiling when a tiny servo wrapped around her finger. “Do you know what’ll happen with her?”

“I would take her in…” Ratchet’s voice faltered as he thought of his sparkmate only a few rooms away. Ironhide would not take kindly to suddenly having another sparkling thrust upon them when they were awaiting their own twins. “I suppose he and I will just have to manage-”

“I’ll take her in.”

The offer took the medic completely off-guard. He looked down with wide optics at Arcee, smiling and playing with the sparkling. Kickstart seemed happy enough, cooing and batting at the older femme’s waggling digits.

“You’ll take her in? Arcee, are you certain?”

“Ratchet, I cared for my younger siblings before the war.” The motorbike smiled sadly.  “I know how to take care of a sparkling. And don’t worry, I’m fairly sure Bulkhead’ll come around. Besides, he can’t stay mad at me or a sparkling for too long.”

“Wait, you and-”

“Last night, Ratchet.” Arcee smiled up at the medic and tapped her chassis. “Made it official.”

“After all this time… congratulations you two.” The ambulance spared them a smile and looked down at the sparkling. A few more moments of contemplation later, he handed the newspark to the motorcycle. Kickstart cooed and kicked her tiny legs free of the sheet that held her captive, chirring and waving her clawed servos up at the older blue femme.

“You look a lot like your creators. Did they give her a name?”

“Kickstart. Her name is Kickstart.”

“Kickstart.” Arcee contemplated the name before smiling down again at the newborn sparkling. “It’s cute. I like it.”

.-.-.

“Mama?”

Optimus had just managed to return to a restful recharge after having been rudely awakened by the alarms he’d set on the monitors. They had stopped blaring before he could get his bearings, and he assumed that someone else had answered the call. He stretched his arms to the side and onlined his optics, slowly sitting up and looking over at the femme sparkling holding onto the railing of her crib and staring at him with wide blue orbs.

“Mama! Bah!”

“Hmm, what is it, Andromeda?”

“Bah!” The little femme was clearly frustrated that her carrier couldn’t understand what she was saying, if her rapidly flickering wings and impatient body movements were anything to go by.

Optimus only stared through narrowed optics at his daughter, struggling to decipher what she was referring to. It was frustrating to him as well. He placed his servos over his optics for a few moments, sighing, before he got to his pedes and walked over to the femme. He picked her up, holding her in one arm, and looked down at her. Andromeda was pointing insistently at the doors to the quarters. The Prime hesitantly made his way over to the sliding doors. When they opened to allow him passage into the hallway he saw Arcee just past his own quarters, gently rocking and cooing at something in her arms.

“Arcee?”

The blue femme turned around and smiled brightly at the Prime. Two yellow orbs peered from her arms. Andromeda pointed at their owner, a tiny blue sparkling wrapped in an off-white sheet, and repeated, “Bah bah!.”

He finally understood.

“Arcee, if I may ask, why do you have a sparkling in your arms? Did Ratchet-”

“No, no. If he had them right now I don’t think they’d be this big.” Arcee looked down at the little sparkling in her arms and bit down on her lower lip. “This is Knockout and Breakdown’s sparkling. Her name’s Kickstart.”

In response to hearing her name the little femme cooed and reached an inquisitive servo out to Optimus and the other femme in his arms. Andromeda blinked, and chirred inquisitively. Kickstart responded back by clicking and whirring, waving her clawed servos at this new friend.

“Mah!” Andromeda looked back at her carrier, blinking her large blue orbs at him innocently.

“Yes, Andromeda. Another sparkling.”

Kickstart was not Andromeda’s sibling. The older sparkling felt no competition for her carrier’s time, affection, and love, and therefore she did not feel hatred for this other femme as she had for her own half-sibling. She smiled at Optimus and turned her gaze back to the new sparkling, chirring back at her. Arcee giggled as her new charge returned with chirps and beeps, waving her claws at the Prime sparkling.

“A Decepticon sparkling. How did she come into your care, Arcee?”

“Ratchet received a message from Knockout asking for help. Breakdown was in labor and…” Arcee trailed off and looked down at the alert and active newspark in her arms. Kickstart squirmed in the blanket that held her, clicking something to her fellow femme sparkling. Andromeda bounced up and down in Optimus’s arms and eagerly responded back.

It was cute. The Prime couldn’t help but smile at his daughter’s happiness. All this time she’d been surrounded by older Cybertronians, and here she was conversing with one as young as her.

“I volunteered to take her in. I can’t let a sparkling be alone without someone there to care for them,” Arcee finished. Kickstart whistled and chirped, kicking her legs and waving her arms, squirming in Arcee’s arms.

Andromeda watched Kickstart closely, marveling at each and every little thing the femme did. Had she once been that small? Had she acted just like that? She turned her optics to look at her carrier, optics wide and shining as if asking him those very questions.

The Prime cleared his vocals and said, “I still possess a few datapads on sparkling development. I could lend them to you.”

“That’d be much appreciated, but later on.” Arcee yawned as the need to recharge overwhelmed her. “I need to find someplace to put this one down and I need to…go down for recharge myself.” Giving the Autobot commander a small smile that doubled as a “good night”, the femme retreated to her quarters, rocking Kickstart in her arms and humming a lullaby. The only lullabies he knew were from datapads he had read; what the two-wheeler was singing was one he’d never heard.

He believed he had every right to be wary, even if he did also believe that every sentient being could change their ways. All he could hope was that with Arcee as her guardian, Kickstart would not emulate the ways of her Decepticon creators and origins.

“Mah?” Andromeda looked off in the direction that Arcee had retreated with her new friend. “Bah?” She blinked her large blue optics and gestured towards Arcee’s quarters, looking again at her carrier. “Mama, bah.”

“Yes, Andromeda, sparkling.” The Prime felt the need to recharge overcoming him as well. He placed his other servo over his optics and sighed. “You need to recharge too, little one.”

“Bah.”

 _Oh to be a sparkling and innocent again,_ the Prime thought to himself.

.-.-.

He commed to the two-wheeler a summons for the morning, telling Arcee to bring Kickstart to the medical bay so he could run a full exam on the sparkling, and stepped into his quarters. A pair of blue optics stared at him from the darkness.

“Where were ya, Ratch’?”

“I received a distress signal. That was the cause of the alarm you may have heard earlier.”

“Heard that. I was callin’ for ya ov’r the bond, Ratch’. Why didn’ ya answ’r?”

“I’m sorry, Ironhide, but I had my end of the bond closed, and I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Doesn’ matter, mech.” The red mech’s optics turned from slightly worried to accusing. “Wha’ was the call for?”

Ratchet thinned his lipplates and contemplated whether or not to tell his bondmate right now. He decided might as well have Ironhide get ticked off all at once rather than have him delay it, so he huffed through his vents and replied, “A bonded Decepticon couple were in need of assistance. One of them was in labor, and they pleaded for asylum here at the base. If not for them, then at least for their daughter.”

“Did ya gi’ it ta ‘em?”

“No. But for their sparkling, their daughter, I did.”

He flinched and widened his optics when the red mech sat up rapidly on the berth, optics going from accusing to murderous before he could open and shut his optics. The medic could see the air around Ironhide shaking and rippling, a clear sign that he was fit to kill.

“Ya took in a ‘con sparklin’ when ther’s already a Prime sparklin’ on base? An’ we got two more comin’?!”

The sparklings kicked frantically at Ratchet. The medic cradled his swollen belly with his servos and snorted derisively. Ridiculous. “Be grateful then, that Arcee took in the sparkling.”

The red mech huffed and stepped off the berth, getting out of the room. Ratchet watched the red mech retreat and sighed as he laid out on the berth, flat on his backplates and falling into recharge.

He was awakened a few hours later by the cables in his lower abdomen tensing up. He stifled a shout and placed a servo to his midsection.

They were coming.


	15. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker

There was no one present at the ground/space bridge controls aboard the _Nemesis_ when they returned. For once, Knockout was grateful for the drones and their tendency to slack off. He checked the amount of energon that had been used in their brief departure from the Decepticon warship. Not much had been used to bridge out and return; well, not enough for a quick glance to betray anything.

He was surprised that his larger bondmate could still walk, albeit very slowly. The blue mech limped his way back towards their quarters, Knockout supporting him. Both mechs felt a huge load lifted off from their shoulder struts when they entered the safety and comfort of their room. The Decepticon medic helped his mate towards the berth, laying him on it, before securing their doors.

“When you get your strength back you’re going to need a long stint in the washrack.”

“I know, Knockout. You don’t have to tell me.”

“I know, I’m just… saying.”

A yellow optic bore into the medic, emotionless and empty. A sigh of frustration and the blue mech turned over in the berth, curling into himself. His servos roamed over his midsection, mourning the sparkling that had been in there.

Knockout sat down at the edge of the berth. He tentatively reached a servo out towards the van, before deciding against it and planting his servo next to his hip.

“We’ll see her again, Breakdown.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do, Breaky. Believe me.”

A snort of indignation. It was silent for what seemed to be an eternity, before Breakdown got to his pedes and wordlessly made his way towards their private washracks. Knockout stared after him. From this point forward, they had to act like everything was fine, and that nothing had happened. That somewhere on this forsaken planet wasn’t their daughter.

Knockout curled up on the berth and stared into nothingness while in the washracks, Breakdown slid to the wet floor and despaired over the sparkling he would never know.

.-.-.

“Are they comin’ yet?”

“Ironhide,” the medic gasped as he panted through torturous contractions, “I’m only twenty percent dilated and they’re nowhere close to making their way into the birthing canal. I’ve got a long way to go.”

“Primus, Ratch’. Can’ ya jus’ get ‘em outta ya?”

Ratchet whacked his bondmate over the helm with a wrench and gave him a stern glare. “With whose medical expertise?”

Ironhide growled. Ratchet knew that if he wasn’t in the throes of labor and debilitated the red mech would have probably hit him back. He watched as Ironhide wet another rag with water from the base’s taps and came back, spreading the cloth over his heated forehelm. Ratchet sighed in relief at the cool temperature.

“I’ve already prepped two emergency sparkling berths should any complications arise due to their premature state,” Ratchet said, talking more to himself than to his bonded. He gasped for air as he felt another contraction on its way and pointed across the medical bay. “Complete with temperature control and fluids to go into their frames to be as close to the environment in the gestation chamber as possible. I just hope that I don’t end up needing to use them.”

Ironhide only stayed quiet and applied another cold rag to his laboring mate’s helm.

.-.-.

_::I still can’t believe that you took their kid in, ‘cee::_

_::And I still can’t believe that you refuse to look past who her carrier was, Bulkhead::_

_::Arcee, you know what I went through with Breakdown. I can’t forgive him for that::_

The femme shook a bottle of artificial sparkling energon mix and tickled the blue sparkling’s midsection, smiling at her giggles. “C’mere, kiddo,” she murmured as she gently cradled Kickstart against her spark and popped the bottle into her waiting mouth. _::Don’t bring her into that. She’s barely a solar cycle old. She doesn’t need an enemy, not this young::_

_::That’s asking a lot from me, ‘cee::_

_::Really? ‘cause I don’t think so::_

Kickstart began fussing, popping the bottle out of her mouth and crying. Her tear-filled optics stared up at her adoptive carrier and mournful wails permeated the femme’s private quarters. The motorbike quickly set the half-drained bottle aside and began bouncing the sparkling up and down in her arms, putting Optimus’s advice and what she remembered from caretaking for her younger siblings so long ago to use. _::Why don’t you just mech up and come over?::_

_::I can hear her crying. No way am I stepping in there when a sparkling’s crying::_

_::Come on, Bulkhead. I could use the help and the company::_

_::Ehh… I’ll be company, but I won’t be much help::_

.-.-.

“How much long’r, Ratch’?”

Ratchet arched up in the berth, panting through another contraction as he managed to scan himself. “I’m at forty-seven percent dilation.” He gasped in relief as it went away. “I was at forty percent thirty minutes ago.” One of the twins stuck his or her pede against his intakes. The other one punched his right side once, then a second time a few moments later.

Ironhide wished he were back out in his ship, traversing the stars. Instead of here, with a bondmate he couldn’t trust anymore and with twin sparklings whose arrival he absolutely dreaded.

Primus was laughing at him, somewhere. And Unicron was probably chuckling at it all too, right with his brother.

.-.-.

Bulkhead watched warily as Arcee cleaned the newest sparkling with a damp cloth. Kickstart seemed to have inherited her Sire’s vanity; the sparkling squirmed and gave her adoptive carrier a disdainful look with each wipe of the cloth on her armor. She seemed worried that it would scratch her up.

“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Arcee said, trying to keep a straight face. It failed. She couldn’t help smiling. If she saw that expression on Knockout she would knock him out without a second thought, and maybe scratch his finish a little. But on Kickstart it was absolutely adorable.

“She doesn’t even resemble Breakdown that much, Bulkhead. Do you have a bad history with Knockout, too?”

“You know how I told you that Breakdown left the Wreckers and me for the Decepticons?”

“Yeah.”

Bulkhead kept a stern gaze on the motorbike and his bondmate. She stared back at him, squinting her optics at him and trying to understand what he was getting at. Kickstart gurgled and playfully swiped her claws at the blue femme. For such a small sparkling, she was very alert and playful.

Then it hit Arcee.

Done with her job of cleaning the sparkling femme’s armor, the two-wheeler tossed the rag across the room to pick it up later. “He left you for Knockout, didn’t he?”

“For the Decepticons, where he met Knockout, but yeah. Kinda the same thing.”

Well, that would explain it. That explained a whole lot.

“Bulkhead,” Arcee said to the Wrecker in a cooing voice meant to soothe the femmeling in her arms. Kickstart lived up to her name and kicked her tiny legs, flailing her arms and turning her helm back and forth. “She doesn’t know anything about them. She doesn’t carry all the wrongs they did to you. This is Kickstart.” Arcee held the yellow-optic’d sparkling in front of the green mech, arching an optic ridge in disapproval when he flinched and scooted a small distance away from her and the femmeling. “Her parents might be Knockout and Breakdown, but she is _not_ them.”

“I know that, ‘cee. But I’ve been holding a grudge against them for years. I can’t just let it go overnight.”

“No. But you can start by not holding a grudge towards this little sparkling when she hasn’t done anything to you.” Arcee didn’t allow her bonded to say anything as she gently plopped Kickstart in his arms. Bulkhead wanted to reel back, giving in to his instinct, but refrained himself. He may not have liked that this sparkling’s creators were two Decepticons he had past history with, but he was not a monster.

“Um…” the green mech trailed off uncertainly as his blue optics met with the yellow ones of the newspark. Kickstart blinked at him, spreading her EM field out to envelop this strange mech. She tilted her helm inquisitively, squinting her optics and studying him. She found him to be an agreeable mech, and waved a claw at him. “Hi there. Not good with sparklings except for Andromeda... and even then she preferred to be with her carrier…”

Kickstart only blinked at him again. She raised her arms and smiled at him, waving her claws at him and kicking her legs.

“‘cee, this is kinda odd. Take her back.”

“No,” the two-wheeler leaned back on her arms and smiled at the green truck. “You gotta get used to her. She’s now my sparkling, and by extension yours too.”

Kickstart chirred and nuzzled into the Wrecker’s chassis.

That made the green mech smile.

.-.-.

_“Isn’t he cute, Ironhide?”_

_The newspark was screaming, dribble at each corner of his mouth and falling on him. He’d endured fire and laserhits and the Pit, but the sound of sparkling drool hitting his frame was louder on his audios than anything he’d heard. He couldn’t move. He felt trapped._

_He wasn’t going to lie to himself. The newspark was ugly. It was deformed. One optic was dimmer than the other. It stared stupidly at him._

_He’s not cute!, he wanted to yell at the medic. But he found himself saying, “He’s beautiful.”_

“Ironhide, wake up!”

The mech stirred and huffed, lifting his helm from where he’d placed them on his arms. He wasn’t aware that he’d fallen into recharge. “‘m already awake mech. Can’ sleep.”

“I’m at ninety-four percent. The seal should tear shor-”

Ratchet was interrupted by the sound of something popping. The medic started when he felt liquid flood out of his opened valve and stream down his thighs. Almost instantly the pressure in his pelvic region increased to the point where he gasped out in pain. A yell of agony was ripped from his vocals when another contraction rippled through his frame.

“The f-first one’s entering the birthing channel.” Ratchet pulled Ironhide to sit between his legs and guided his servos to his valve. “I-I need you to catch the sparklings.”

Before he knew it, in a flurry of spasms, screams of agony, and pushes, the first sparkling slid into Ironhide’s servos. Ratchet held his servos out, sighing in relief as the sparkling squirmed against him and screamed in displeasure at having been taken from the warm, wet world of its carrier to this cold, unfamiliar place. The medic flared his EM field out to his newspark, comforting it and telling the bitlet that it was safe. He traced a line down the middle of the sparkling’s chassis with his digit, and laughed when blue light filtered out.

“It’s a mech, Ironhide! We’ve got a son! We’ve got a son!” he announced triumphantly, laughing and crying simultaneously and looking over at the sire of his sparklings. Ironhide’s blue optics were emotionless as he kept his place, only nodding to show that he’d heard his mate’s words. He made no move to look at the mechling in Ratchet’s servos. Ratchet gently lay the screaming sparkling on his chassis. Almost instantly the mech quit crying and curled up against his carrier’s spark.

The other twin came quickly. Ratchet softly cried out, keeping a servo over the first sparkling and choking out in relief as the second one slid from his frame and into Ironhide’s servos. It didn’t move. Ironhide widened his optics and quickly passed the second sparkling into Ratchet’s arms, taking the first one into his as he watched the medic rub at the bitlet’s backstruts and use a medical tool to siphon gestational fluids out of the sparkling’s intakes, but it still didn’t budge. He thumped the little one on the back twice before he heard a pathetic kitten mewl. The medic laughed out loud in relief and coaxed the little one’s chassis plates to open up , optics registering the color that filtered out.

“Another mechling, Ironhide. Twin mechs,” Ratchet whispered desperately as he tried his hardest to get a reaction out of the other mech, the sire of their sons, but Ironhide was nearly dead to the world; the red mech only nodded and gently held out the older twin to him. Ratchet sighed and twisted the umbilical lines off from both mechlings, wrapping them both in cloths and cradling them to his chassis as Ironhide stood up and walked out of the medical bay.

Ratchet watched the red mech leave. He turned back to the twin mechlings in his arms and flared out his EM fields, feeling theirs mingle with his and pulse back love for him, which he returned in kind.

“You,” he whispered to the older one, the mechling in vibrant red colors that began mouthing at his chassis, “you will be Sideswipe, little one. And you,” he turned to the youngest one, colored bright yellow and clutching at his chassis and whimpering softly, “will be Sunstreaker.”


	16. Leaving

He didn’t care.

He honest to Primus did not care.

They could all offline right now, his bondmate and their two sons, and the only tears he would shed would be the ones out of the pain of having his bond with the medic ripped away.

He tapped coordinates into the ground bridge controls and moved his other servo on the handle to activate it. The swirling green portal opened up. Ironhide looked at it wistfully; it was his ticket to freedom.

_::Ironhide, where are you?!::_

_::Leavin’::_

_::Leaving to where?::_

_::Never comin’ back, Ratch::_

He heard the medic’s intakes hitch in horror. _::Ironhide, you can’t leave me! You can’t leave your own sparklings!::_

Ironhide grit his dentae and only responded with _::Who says I can’t?::_ before he shut down the sparkbond with the medic. Ironhide took on his vehicular mode and sped through the groundbridge. He didn’t care where it took him; as long as it was far away from here and he couldn’t be found, that was all that mattered.

.-.-.

Optimus woke to insistent pinging on his communication link. It was far too early in the morning for this. He sat up in the berth and held his faceplates in his servos. ::Who is it?::

::Optimus::

It was Ratchet. The Prime sighed. ::What is it, Ratchet?::

::Optimus… please. I need assistance::

The tone in the medic’s voice was pleading and soft. Optimus sighed and replied. ::Where are you?::

::I’m in the medical bay. Please::

::I will be there shortly::

The Prime got to his pedes, pressing the palms of servos to his optics. After making sure Andromeda was fast asleep with her blanket tucked around her and Keet in her arms, he made his way to the medical bay.

The first thing he noticed was the heavy weight in the air. It felt as if the entire weight of the world had settled in this one room.

The second thing he noticed was the pair of exhausted blue optics looking at him from the berth. Ratchet was half-sitting up, both his arms curled around a pair of tiny, dirty frames that were latched to his open chassis. He heard familiar, soft suckling noises. Optimus’s spark dropped and his optics widened slightly as he took in the sight before him.

“Primus… you-”

“Yes,” Ratchet sighed in exhaustion, looking down at the twins greedily feeding from his lines. He closed his optics and nodded. “Mechs. Both of them.”

“And Ironhide?”

Ratchet ignored the question, quickly saying, “Optimus, I need to clean myself and these two up. Can you… when they’re done can you take them while I-”

“Yes.”

As soon as the Prime gave his assent, Sunstreaker stopped feeding and whimpered softly, batting at the loose line. Sideswipe followed, yawning and falling into recharge. Optimus took one, then the other into his arms and watched as Ratchet staggered off the berth. His midsection was still swollen, his normally pristine thighs covered in birth fluids. The medic placed a servo on the metal berth to steady himself, helm bowed. He watched the medic’s chassis expand then deflate as he inhaled and exhaled.

Optimus noted the tense emotions in the other mech’s EM field. He closed his in so it didn’t affect the newsparks tucked in his arms, and softly said, “Ratchet, where is Ironhide?”

Ratchet removed a cleaning cloth from his subspace and one-handedly began wiping down the insides of his thighs. He retracted his EM field as he quietly answered, “He left.”

“Where did he leave to?”

He saw Ratchet tense up and stop wiping away the mess of birth. The medic tightened his grip on the cloth and moved to wipe at his pelvic plating. “He left. He’s not coming back.”

The Prime looked down at the sleeping twins in his arms and sighed. He felt pity for them, and for their carrier.

“He had asked me to make a choice,” Ratchet’s broke through his thoughts, his voice thick and heavy with tears. “He asked me to make a choice, and I chose him, because he sired my sons, because I loved him for so long, and our bond…” he choked, tossing the cloth to the floor and moving his free servo to his chassis plating, directly over his pulsing life force. “Our bond,” he whispered. “It’s done. It’s for forever. He can’t ignore that. I can’t believe he would ignore such a thing.”

Optimus had no idea how to respond. He closed his optics and remembered all that he’d gone through with the medic. The twins curled closer to his calm and loving spark, cooing.

“I seem to remember that we spent hundreds of thousands of stellar cycles together. Far longer than you had spent with any other mech,” he whispered as he stared straight ahead at the wall before him. “Every chance we got we allowed our inhibitions to get the best of us. Every chance we got we sought out alone time. Even just to talk. We were the best of friends,” the Prime’s voice stalled for a moment before he continued, “and we were lovers.”

Ratchet was silent by now, listening and hanging onto every word the Prime was saying.

“When I returned from the Decepticon warship almost a year ago, pregnant and with no memory of how it all had happened, I wanted you to stay with me despite my decision to keep the sparkling. But you decided not to stay. It hurt. But I accepted it as much as it pained me. Then that night happened, just before he arrived… I believe you can’t ignore, either, the daughter we conceived and lost. Yet you did. Despite the fact that she is no longer with us we cannot ignore that there will always be those things that bind us together. I am sure Ironhide is not ignoring that, but you did bond with him and give him sons during a very turbulent time.”

Optimus had nothing more to say. He simply watched as Ratchet digested his words and finished cleaning himself off. When the medic was in a suitable state and had managed to regain a sufficient amount of strength to keep himself upright on his pedes, he gently took both mechlings into his arms again. “Thank you Optimus. I can handle things from here.”

The Prime nodded and made his exit. Ratchet watched the red and blue mech go and closed his optics. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker began fussing and he gently cradled them to his chassis, soothing the newsparks.

So many questions ran through his processor.

Why had Ironhide left?

Would he ever return? Would the thought of his mate and sons left along be enough to get him to come back?

How would he cope with raising twins alone?

There were so many questions, and no answers.

He received a coded databurst from a familiar source. He opened it. His spark swelled with grief and some part of joy as he read it.

::I forgive you Ratchet. For everything. I only regret that it took me this long and your current circumstance to do so::

.-.-.

“I have gathered you three here for a few reasons.”

Optimus gently bounced Andromeda up and down on his lap, cooing at her before looking back at the yellow scout, the blue motorbike, and the green Wrecker standing before him. Bulkhead held a recharging Kickstart in his arms. Andromeda had her optics fixed on her fellow femme and she chirred softly, trying to get Kickstart’s attention.

“As you may have noticed in the past few solar cycles, Ironhide is no longer with us; he took off. To where, Ratchet does not know and he cannot seem to get through to him. Wherever he may have taken off too, however, all we can do is hope he does well and that he will find it fit to return soon to his bondmate and to his sons.

“Ratchet has not been accessible to us lately, as you may have noticed as well. He has his servos full with his sons, especially since he is now facing the journey of creatorhood alone.”

“How’s he doing, other than… than all that?” Arcee asked timidly.

Optimus looked down at the sparkling in his lap and sighed. He shifted on his aft to a more comfortable position on the floor. She plopped down against him, yawning and wings twitching. “He will not speak to me. I have forgiven him, but now it is his turn to give me the silent treatment, as the humans refer to it as. Perhaps…” he looked away for a moment, closing his optics then reopening them. “Perhaps it is for the best, given that I will not be around here much longer.”

He didn’t have to look up to feel everyone tense up. Their EM fields all retracted; Bulkhead’s retracted the quickest so he wouldn’t upset Kickstart.

“What?” the green Wrecker asked what was on all their minds.

“Andromeda and I will be leaving soon as well.”

It took all the willpower in their frames to keep Arcee, Bulkhead, and Bumblebee from shouting, “WHAT?!!!” Bumblebee chirped inquisitively and Arcee and Bulkhead looked at each other.

“Agent Fowler petitioned the government to create a second base for the Autobots on the eastern end of this country. Given Ironhide’s arrival on Earth I believed that we would have more Autobots arriving in the future; though he has now strayed and gone away, there is still hope. I happen to have no one tying me here. No human charge and no mate that would want to stay here.”

The yellow scout, optics wide and quivering at the thought of their leader leaving them, beeped an inquiry at the red and blue mech. Optimus turned to Bumblebee, replying, “It is located in a cleared and now safe abandoned coal mine in the state of West Virginia. It is twice the size of this base.”

“Are you going to be the only one there?” Bulkhead asked. Kickstart woke up from her sleep and chirred at Andromeda, who clicked back at her.

The Prime thought of a vast space. Echoing and empty. Only him in the middle, Andromeda in his arms, and both looking around trying to make something of their housing. “Andromeda and I will be the only ones there for the time being. Until more Autobots arrive, at least.”


	17. Departure

Andromeda was only taking her beloved blanket, her drawing pad, and Keet. The other toys were being left in the recreation room for Kickstart, Sunstreaker, and Sideswipe to use as they pleased. Optimus was taking all his datapads, sans the ones on early sparklinghood that he’d given to Arcee for Kickstart. He’d read them so many times during his carrying cycle with Andromeda that he’d committed them to memory. Andromeda’s crib had been disassembled and placed in the trailer.

She sat in the trailer, hugging her plush lion to her chassis and her starry blanket laid across her legs. Her blue optics looked at the datapads tied and stacked in the back. She looked back outside, at the only place she’d known as home, and chirped. She grabbed Keet and tossed him towards the monitors, at Arcee’s pedes.

Arcee leaned down and grabbed the lion by the left front leg. She stared at his beady eyes and smiled sadly, looking up at Andromeda staring at her from the trailer. “Don’t be throwing your things, Andromeda. You don’t want to leave your stuff behind. You’ll miss it.”

“Mah!”

The older femme stepped over to the metal caravan and lifted Andromeda into her arms, setting her over her shoulder and bouncing her up and down. She felt her spark twist and her optics fill with tears. She remembered first seeing Andromeda, a crying little thing cradled in Bumblebee’s arms as Ratchet and Bulkhead raced an unconscious Optimus to the medical bay. The little femme was so beautiful, looked so much like her regal carrier. She still did.

Andromeda squirmed and babbled softly in sparkling speak, nuzzling her face into the crook of Arcee’s neck. She yawned and stretched, bending an arm behind her back. Arcee rubbed the seekerling’s backstrut and whispered, “You’ll always have family here. We aren’t of same genetic coding, but you’re family. We’ll always be with you, if not physically then in spirit.” Her voice trembled as she tried to keep from crying.

Andromeda only cooed and flicked her wings.

.-.-.

Optimus looked around at the empty quarters. It had always seemed too small for him, especially after Andromeda’s birth when he’d had to designate a side of the room for her crib and her belongings. Now it seemed vast and endless.

He was done hauling the many toys his daughter had accumulated to the rec room. The only thing left was his berth. His optics dimmed as he remembered the innumerable times he and Ratchet had coupled on that very berth. Always him on the receiving end, looking up and occasionally down at Ratchet as the medic thrust into him. By Primus, the memories…

He looked at what had been Andromeda’s side of the room. Playing with her, picking her up out of her crib and comforting her after a nightmare.

The Prime headed out, stopping briefly in the little waiting room and remembered his discussion with the medic about how Andromeda had been born. He would miss this place. As many bad memories that were associated with this place, all the good memories outweighed the negative.

Optimus reset the passcode to this room, setting it to the default 0000, and exited the quarters without looking back. He had a new place to look forward to. A fresh start with his daughter.

Before he headed over to the main room he turned the other way down the hall and headed for the quarters next to the medical bay. He hadn’t talked to the medic since the night the twins were born and that Ironhide left. The Prime closed his optics, sighed, and raised a tentative servo, knocking on the metal doors. They slid apart, and Ratchet’s tired optics looked at him from exhausted faceplates. The medic lifted his servo to his optics and pressed them as he mumbled, “What do you want, Optimus?”

The Prime bristled at the curt manner in which the ambulance addressed him. He pursed his lipplates and answered, “Andromeda and I are about to leave.”

“…are you both expecting a goodbye ceremony?”

“No, Ratchet. I was just letting you know.”

As soon as the Prime finished that sentence a piercing wail echoed through the base. He jumped and was about to call for his daughter over their bond, but then realized that the source came from inside the medic’s quarters. Ratchet turned around and sighed. Sunstreaker. No question about it. “I have my sparklings to attend to, Optimus.”

Optimus only nodded. When the doors closed in front of him he curled up his servo and placed it on the door softly, leaning his forehelm against it. His intakes hitched, a single tear streaked down his faceplate, and he whispered, “Goodbye, old friend.”

When a minute of silence passed on his side of the door, the Prime straightened himself up and walked down the length of the corridor to the main room. Everyone else other than Ratchet and the twins were there. Arcee was standing at the monitors, her lips pursed and optics shining as she fought tears, and Bulkhead and Bumblebee playing with Kickstart and Andromeda. The little Prime sparkling was showing Kickstart how to draw and to erase on the datapad. She chirred at the yellow-optic’d sparkling and made an awkward gesture towards the pad, pointing to a button. Kickstart stared at her fellow femme sparkling for a moment before getting it, and she slapped her servo down, erasing all the nonsensical scribbles she’d done.

“Bah mah!” Andromeda said, smiling down at the other sparkling. Hearing footfalls heading her way, she looked up and saw that it was her carrier. She raised her arms up at him and cooed contentedly when he leaned down and picked her up.

“Are you ready for departure, Andromeda?” he asked her, giving his daughter a small smile. The femme’s own grin dropped and she nuzzled into his chassis, clicking and whistling sadly.

“Mama.”

“Carrier, little one. Carrier,” he whispered as he looked around at the other Cybertronians. Arcee having turned from the monitors and facing them, Bumblebee’s optics wide and saddened, and Bulkhead with Kickstart in his arms.

“It has been an honor serving with you all,” Optimus addressed the other assembled bots. “We have been through much these past stellar cycles we have served together, and I hope you all do not forget that. But now it is time that I move on and help establish the other base.” Andromeda squirmed in his grasp and began sniffling. The Prime shushed her and continued, “We will be in touch.”

“Wait, Optimus. Why aren’t you taking the groundbridge?”

The Prime strode to the trailer and gently placed Andromeda inside, depositing her datapad inside, answering Bulkhead, “I would greatly love a drive cross-country to clear my processor. And, besides,” he closed the trailer so Andromeda was unseen by all, “I would love for Andromeda to see what this planet has to offer.”

.-.-.

For three solar cycles Optimus traversed the barren and less-traveled roads to give himself opportunity to just pull over and stop when he felt like taking on his bipedal mode and taking Andromeda for a walk. He would stop and expand his scanning field to 100 miles. When there were no humans nearby, putting them in danger of being seen, he got his daughter out of the trailer and toted her around the wilderness, showing her everything he’d learned of Earth.

The first stop had been in a place called Rocky Mountain National Park. He’d taken off at 10AM Jasper, Nevada time, and arrived there at nighttime. The moon shone above them. He pulled over on a road and transformed into his bipedal mode after he determined that the only humans around were on the other side of Lake Granby. They wouldn’t be able to see him.

He opened the back of the trailer and smiled when he saw that Andromeda was curled up in recharge. Reaching in and gently grabbing the sparkling he cradled her to his chassis, whispering lovingly, “Andromeda. Wake up, my daughter.”

The sparkling growled and curled into his chassis, mumbling in sparkling speak. Her optics blearily opened, twin beacons of blue shining in the darkness.

Chuckling lightly the Prime stepped over to the Earth liquid and flinched at the cool temperature of the water. After adjusting to it he made his way further in until he stood in the lake up to his knee-joint. Andromeda watched the water level rise towards her warily. She chirred and tried to lift herself further from the liquid, clutching her carrier’s chassis.

“It is water, little one. Harmless.” To prove his point the Prime leaned down slightly and dipped his servo into the clear liquid, cupping water in the palm of his hand and splashing it on his faceplate. Andromeda watched curiously, chirping softly. She raised a servo to touch a bead of water that trailed down her carrier’s faceplate. When she saw that it did no harm, she grinned brightly at him and gestured down to the water.

“As you wish,” the Prime stated. He backed up slightly and lowered himself to sit in the water, where the level reached up to his mid-chassis. Optimus sat Andromeda in his lap, watching her start at the low temperature of the water. She eventually got used to it, and nuzzled up to him. She pointed at the stars above her.

“Yes, little one. They are called stars.” The Prime pointed at a slanted line of stars. “Do you see the three stars I am pointing at, little femme? That is the belt of Orion the Hunter. Orion was my old name…and would have been your designation had you been a mech.”

 _Chirp!_ Andromeda looked up at her carrier with arched optic ridges.

“And you see that light, just below the belt?”

Andromeda searched for it, and nodded when she found it.

“That is not a star.”

Andromeda tilted her helm, narrowing her optics at him in a gesture for him to continue.

“No. That is a nebula. The Orion Nebula. Beyond it is our homeworld, Cybertron. It went dark so long ago, many many stellar cyclesbefore your birth.” The Prime raised his helm to the starry sky, closing his optics and feeling the wind caress his faceplates. “I was not even born there during a time of prosperity. I wish I had been. I wish you had been. Cybertron was beautiful…so beautiful.”

Optimus cast his gaze down and smiled. “I hope someday you will see our homeplanet. I hope that I get to present you before Primus, to ensure you a place in the Well. I cannot imagine going the rest of my lifecycle without you.” He gently began washing the little sparkling of dust and dirt. She squealed at the cold temperature and grabbed at her carrier’s fingers. The Autobot Commander smiled down at the seekerling.

“Come. We have a schedule to keep.”

.-.-.

He did short bursts on the highway to shorten the amount of time needed to arrive at Autobot Outpost Alpha One. Andromeda had grown restless and was crawling around the empty spaces in the trailer. She’d tired of her datapad and her blanket and stuffed lion.

Whenever he could he pulled over and took the seekerling out, even if it was flat and uninteresting outside, like the plain he’d pulled over in when they were in Kansas.

It was a few days later that he reached the mountains of West Virginia. A beacon had been activated and with each mile he drew closer to it the charier he felt.

_::Mah?::_

_::We are almost there, Andromeda. Be patient::_ Optimus replied as he pulled closer to the beacon. He sighted it in the hands of a very familiar human hidden by the trees to the naked human eye, but with his sensors he could see it.

“Agent Fowler,” his voice rumbled out from his vehicular mode. He opened his door and allowed the African-American human to step in. “How far are we from the base?”

“Take a left turn off this road in a mile and keep going for another two miles.”

It was silent as the Prime followed the human’s directions. He reached the sloping foot of a mountain, and watched as it opened up in front of him. The interior tunnel was an exact copy of the one back in Nevada. The same curve, type of concrete and paint color, the same light fixtures. Then he reached the end of the tunnel, where it opened up into a large circular room, much larger than the main room at Autobot Outpost Omega One.

Optimus shoved off the trailer gently, mindful of his daughter in the back, allowed the human liaison to exit, and took on his bipedal mode. The ceiling was easily 30 feet above his helm. He stepped over to the caravan and opened it, taking a restless Andromeda out. She squawked and fluttered her wings.

“Autobot Outpost Alpha One, Prime.” Fowler turned to look up at the Prime and gestured to one of the corridors to his right. Right there is one of two corridors that lead to quarters. There’s five on this end, and over there,” he pointed to the other end of the room where there was another hall, “are another set of five. Right over there,” he took a step towards the third hallway stuck between the two halls that led to rooms, “this tunnel curves off into two other ones. One leads to a medical bay and a recreation room, the other leads to the energon or whatever it is you guys drink storage. Just in case, the energon storage is located underground and accessible by either stairs or a lift.”

“Many thanks, Agent Fowler.” Optimus looked down at Andromeda, who seemed a bit intimidated by the large room, far bigger than she was used to. “Do you require a lift back to your headquarters?”

“I got a helicopter incoming. ETA two minutes. I’ll wait outside for them.”

The human headed back down the hallway, then remembered something and shouted, “Your quarters are at the end of the hall to your right! You don’t want to switch them out, trust me!”

Curious, the Autobot Commander headed down said hallway until he came to the very last room. He tapped in the default code that was on a slip of paper above the keypad, 010101, and the doors slid open to reveal his quarters. A sizable waiting area, one room leading to private washracks, and another smaller hallway. He headed down that corridor and smiled to see that it led to two personal rooms, each equipped with a berth. The largest one was obviously for him, and the slightly smaller one was for Andromeda when she no longer need to be in the same room as him.

“Come on, little femme,” he smiled broadly down at the sparkling. Andromeda chirred. “Let us get settled.”

.-.-.

There wasn’t much to unpack. He’d already deposited his datapads underneath his own berth, and was busy reassembling Andromeda’s crib at the other end of his new room. The femmeling sat next to him and watched as her little berth was fixed up and finally stood tall and proud again. She chirred and batted her servos at one of the legs.

“That is all, then,” Optimus said more to himself than to anyone, standing up and stepping back to see it. He looked down at Andromeda and picked her up off the floor, placing her back in her berth. Andromeda cooed and curled up under her blanket; in this time of change her berth was one of few things that stayed constant.

“Do you wish to have a story read to you?”

Andromeda looked up at him with bright blue optics, and nodded.

Laughing softly the Prime ducked under his berth and searched for that datapad. When he found it he grasped it in his servos, moving back over to his daughter. He cleared his vocalizer, grinned down at her, and began to read:

_Nexus and Solus Prime loved creation. They were the creators of many of the legendary weapons of Cybertronian lore. Together in battle they were unstoppable. They wielded their creations. The Forge, the Star Saber, the Requiem Blaster. All these weapons had the ability to create planets from rocks and crumble stars into dust._

_But there was something they both loved more than creation. Each other. Nexus once enlisted the help of Amalgamous Prime and Vector Prime to move a cluster of newborn stars around so that before she went into recharge, Solus would set her optics on a group of stars in the night sky spelling out her name._

_It took millennia, but Nexus finally convinced Solus that they should become creators. Thus one of the greatest warriors in Cybertronian lore was born: Andromeda the Warrior._

_Andromeda was the fiercest warrior the universe had ever seen. She obliterated entire opposing armies with just one swipe of her Energon Sword. She created stars at will and crumbled planets when she felt like doing so. She could be forgiving one moment and murderous the next. The fledging Cybertronian civilization bowed to her will and worshipped her. History says that the Thirteen Primes ruled the planet. But those alive during the reign will tell you for sure that it was Andromeda that wielded her wisdom and authority far more than the Primes._

_Not everything lasts, forever, sadly. Conflict arose between the Primes. Her carrier and sire were never heard from again. She was not free from their wrath. When Cybertron rebelled against the Prime rule she was banished the unforgiving wilderness to die, blamed for all the wrongs that were wreaked on civilization._

_Legend tells that Andromeda the Warrior is still alive however, if not in body, then in spirit. Her innate sense of good and justice, and her warrior’s will and strength are still seen around today. And if you look upon the night sky in the final solar cycle of a Cybertronian year, you will see three names spelled out in the stars: Nexus, Solus, and Andromeda._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story had a sequel by the name of _Resolute_ that was also taken down at the same time last year. Be on the lookout for it :) It'll be far better written than this one and _Lethe_ , believe you me, as I'm currently in the process of rewriting it. It may also have a title change; not entirely sure yet.
> 
> Whomever read this story, I hope you were not too traumatized by it.


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